


Tangled Webs

by scriber008



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 66,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4024909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriber008/pseuds/scriber008
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Post-2x12 Alaheo Pau'ole. AU from there.]<br/>A woman, a request… and a resulting web of danger, lies, love and lust that no one could have predicted. Least of all… him.<br/>[eventual Steve/Kono, team/casefic]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_It was a stunning evening as the sun set over the ocean. A postcard setting, as many sunsets were in Hawaii… and it had been a good day for the Five-0. They’d gotten the bad guy, given a family some much needed closure and they’d had the joy of adding a new member to their family._

_Chin Ho Kelly’s wedding had been beautiful and had gone off without a hitch. Now, among the party goers, the man who had been haunted for so long finally looked insanely happy, and Kono couldn’t have been happier for her cousin that he got his happy ending with Malia after all of these years. “_

_So…” Steve’s voice interrupted her musing. “You’re a cousin-in-law.”_

_She chuckled before turning to give him a wry look. “You do realize that I’ve been a cousin-in-law at least five times over already, right?”_

_He chuckled too at the reminder of her large family as he came to stand next to her, looking out at the ocean. “Yeah, yeah.”_

_“_ _You realize that makes you a boss-in-law, right?” she teased with a dimpled half-grin. He raised an eyebrow at her._

_“I’ve never heard of that before,” he said. She just shrugged, grinned again and gave him a wink._

_“_ _It’s a Five-0 thing.” He grinned back for a moment before looking out at the water. She turned as well, evaluating the man next to her._

_“_ _Despite the happiness of the day, I’m sensing a bit of angst from you, Boss. You gonna tell me what’s on your mind?” she probed, not really expecting much in return. At least she could say she tried. It was quiet for a long moment. A moment where she was sure her suspicion was confirmed. But then he sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets._

_“Joe’s in the wind,” he said softly. She frowned as she looked around the party that was now in full swing._

_“He was just here…” she said, confused. He smiled before looking at her._

_“Yeah…” he said. “Yeah. That’s how it works sometimes.” Silence again. But she’d known him long enough to understand what he was about. She knew what the silence meant._

_“You’re going after him,” she sighed, rubbing her arms in order to ward off the evening ocean breeze. Before she knew it, she had a suit jacket draped over her shoulders. When she looked over at him, he had his hands back in his pockets and he was looking out at the water again. There were words out there that she knew he was trying to gather. And when he finally had some semblance of them, she saw him swallow hard._

_"Kono, I need to ask you to do something for me.” He turned to look her in the eye. She saw it immediately. This was going to be personal. And after all that had happened over the past year or so, it felt good to have that trust. She nodded, keeping his gaze._

_“Sure, Boss. Name it…”_

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If she’d known where that particular exchange was going to take her, Kono Kalakaua may have thought twice about agreeing so readily to the very rare request.

But Steve McGarrett had never steered her wrong. And he’d looked so uncomfortable when asking without actually asking… it had been like he’d been afraid she’d say no AND afraid that she’d say yes. It was a look that was so foreign on the Navy SEAL that she couldn’t do anything BUT say yes. The actual “why” in that scenario wasn’t something she was patient enough to really dwell on, so she didn’t.

She had said yes. Didn’t even hesitate, like he had.

Now granted, in Steve’s absence, she’d taken a bit of artistic license in the course of accomplishing her mission… probably an artistic sort of license that he never would have imagined. Kono knew she’d painted Steve’s “any means” with more of an abstract brush than he probably intended. “Any means” in the Navy SEAL handbook likely read as more straight-forward tactics. But if it got them what they needed in the end, who was a man who usually paved his own investigative trails to complain? Especially after he’d left them to go barreling after his mentor with barely an explanation.

She sat back on the plush sofa and smiled to herself as she picked up one of room service’s strawberries. And who was she to turn down a prime opportunity when it unexpectedly showed itself? Especially when there were so many side benefits to the arrangement.

Kono frowned slightly as she took a bite of the fruit. The only problem with this plan was that now… it didn’t quite feel like an “arrangement” anymore. She knew that she’d exchange a potential problem with a slightly larger, slightly more concrete problem. A problem that had the potential for many smaller problems following in its wake.

Adam Noshimuri walked into the spacious room wearing only a towel around his freshly showered body. He grabbed a strawberry for himself before leaning down to give her a quick, thorough good morning kiss.

“Good call,” he murmured against her lips with a smile. She smiled back. She was beginning to wonder if this whole arrangement had been a good call as her heart suddenly felt the need to skip a beat.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**To be continued…**


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

In hindsight, trying to track down Joe White probably hadn’t been the most intelligent of ideas.  The man was a ghost.  And if anyone knew just how good of a ghost the man could be, it was Steve McGarrett.

He was no closer to solving any of his problems than he had been three weeks ago.  Hiro Noshimuri was still missing, Wo Fat was lurking in the corners as always, and Joe White was out there with a good chunk of his answers.

Three weeks.  He’d been away from Hawaii for three weeks and he would be returning with his tail between his legs.  Joe had always been at least a half step ahead of him.  That was _always_ enough room for a SEAL to disappear.

The plane touched down with a relatively gentle shake, and Steve pulled out his cell phone and quickly punched in a speed dial code.

“Williams House of Pineapple.”  Steve raised an eyebrow at the sarcastic response.

“Well, that would be a change,” he commented.  Danny snorted a quick laugh.

“Ah, Super SEAL... finally, we’re important enough to actually get a phone call.  Three weeks, babe.  You’d be _amazed_ at what can change in three weeks.”

“You say that like things have,” he said.  There was an uncharacteristic moment of silence.

“You’d be surprised.”  There was a serious tone in Danny’s voice that put Steve on edge.

“Everyone okay?” he asked, his mind going quickly to Kono, Chin and Lori.  Not for the first time did he regret not trying to stay in touch over the past few weeks.

“Oh sure, everyone’s healthy and in one piece.  Easy enough to do without you around, Trouble Magnet,” Danny answered.  Steve absorbed that for a moment as the plane finished taxiing and other passengers began to gather their things.

“But?” he prompted.  There was one little, niggling worry at the back of his brain.  Again, it took Danny a moment to respond.

“You’ll be coming back to an interesting dynamic, that’s for damn sure.  Something went down between Chin & Kono, babe.  Serious stuff.  The only time I see them acknowledge each other is on the job, professional as ever,” he said, voice quiet as if he didn’t want to be heard.  Which was probably the case.

“Did either of them say anything?” he asked.  That little worry was now becoming a flashing neon warning sign.  Danny scoffed.

“Are you kidding? Get anything other than _everything’s fine_ out of those two? I think it may require your more ‘refined’ interrogation skills.  I’ve already tried bribery, alcohol,  & Daddy Danny voice,” his partner told him.  Steve sighed.  He remembered the last time he had to interrogate one of them.  It was _not_ a good memory…

“I just touched down at Honolulu International.  I’ll be to HQ in about 30 minutes,” he said.

“You’re back on the island?  Well, gee, that was a fair amount of warning, buddy.  I’ve had no time to alert the criminal element that Crazy is back in town.  Or, you know, put together a Welcome Home party,” Danny joked.

“I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of crazy,” Steve said back, pulling his bag from the overhead compartment and following the other passengers to the exit.

“Ha! Surprisingly not.  Or not-surprisingly, whichever.  Things have mostly been run-of-the-mill.  Some would say ‘boring’.  I don’t say that, of course, but _some_ would,” his partner griped.  Steve grinned.

“You can just _say_ you missed me, you know,” he joked.

“What’s wrong with you, huh?  I mean, didn’t I just get done saying that life has been peaceful?  Sedate even?  How does that translate to I missed you?  Just get your ass back here so I don’t have to be Lori’s only source of conversation, alright?  With the Talkative Twins good moods as of late, she seems to find me a stunning conversationalist,” he grumbled.

“But you _are_ , Daniel,” Steve said with a smirk.  “Absolutely _stunning_ …”

“I didn’t miss you at all, jackass,” Danny retorted.  “Not one bit.”

“Duly noted, buddy.  And get out of my chair,” Steve ordered.  There was the distinct sound of feet hitting the ground.

“What?  Why would you say that?” his partner sputtered.  Steve chuckled.

“Just do it.  And wipe the shoe prints off of the desk, too,” he said before hanging up on Danny’s annoyed response.  Steve rubbed a hand over his face as he made his way off the plane.

Welcome back to Hawaii.

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

Kono sat at her desk twisting a paperclip into unrecognizable shapes.  Well, _mangling_ was probably a better word choice.  Things had been uneasy lately with the group dynamic.  And she knew that she and Chin played a major role in that.  Along with their MIA leader.  It was especially hard since things had been relatively quiet, the cases pretty much open and shut without a whole lot of legwork to distract from the obvious.

To say that she and Chin weren’t talking would be a major understatement.  Her current social life was to blame for it all, of course.  Not that it was Chin’s, or _anyone’s_ , business.  If she’d known what it would turn into after she confirmed Chin’s suspicion about Adam, she never would have said anything.  Constant suspicion would have at least been tolerable to the constant anger and disappointment Chin seemed to be aiming at her.

Kono let out a sigh as she tossed the paperclip onto her desk and sat back in her chair.  It felt like the whole undercover mess all over again, times ten.  She never took Chin’s anger and disappointment well.  It’s the price she paid for looking up to the guy since she could first walk.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Danny exited Steve’s office.  She could only smirk at the fact that Danny thought he’d get away with that little rearrangement.

“Hop to it, Wonder Woman! Caught a case…” he called out to her.  She stood up.

“Really?  I was beginning to think that crime had taken a vacation.  Jersey, maybe?” she said with a teasing smile.  He just made a face at her.

“Ha ha.  Everyone’s a comedian.  Anyway… boss man is back in paradise.  He’s on his way here.  But you need to go take a look at this B&E,” Danny said, handing her the police report.  She frowned, even as her breath caught at the thought of Steve being back.  The group dynamic was about to get _really_ interesting.  But first things first…

“A simple breaking and entering?  Really?” she asked.  This was child’s play.  Or, HPD that is.  Danny rolled his eyes.

“Look at the address,” he said.  She did, and scoffed.

“The Governor’s neighborhood.  Now it makes sense.  Fine, I’ll head over now,” she said, going to head back to her desk to grab her badge and gun.

“Take Chin with you,” Danny called after her, too much innocence in his voice to really pass as innocent.  She only faltered slightly in her step before continuing on.

“Fine.”  She gave a thumbs up to the other man.  Danny shook his head.

“’Fine’, she says.  _Fine_ …” he grumbled.

“Problems?” Chin’s voice came from behind him.  He whirled around.

“Oh no.  No problems.  Just a routine B&E.  You and Kono have fun,” Danny told him.  Chin’s jaw tightened, but it was barely noticeable.  But rather than say anything, he just nodded.  Danny shook his head as he watched Chin go to his own desk.

“Crazy kids.”

“I heard that,” Kono said as she clipped her gun to her belt.

“I don’t care.  Just go… get outta my hair,” Danny told her, waving his hands toward the door.  She smirked at him.

“Yes, get out of your perfectly coifed hair,” she teased.  Danny’s eyes widened at her.

“Oh, you’re making jokes still?  I’ll have you know that my hair hasn’t been perfectly coifed since McGarrett left.  Mostly because of you two,” he said, pointing to her and the approaching Chin.  “Seriously.  If you two don’t do your cousin-y hug thing and make up, you’re going to make me a bald man.”

“I’d not make up just for that fact alone,” Kono quipped.  Danny gave her a look just as Chin let out a chuckle.  Kono looked over at him and he sobered immediately.  Danny just raised an eyebrow.

“Progress,” he said.  “At my expense, but it’s still progress.”

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

The car ride was silent.  Not that she’d expected any different.  And for two people who could talk about anything with each other –or used to – it was quite painful.

“How’s Malia?”  She bit first.  She really wanted to know, anyway.  Chin’s hand tightened on the steering wheel.

“Fine.”  The answer was given like he was chewing glass.  Kono sighed.  She was done being angry.  But the reverse was very obviously not even close to being true.

“Look, Chin… if you want to hate me, fine.  I can deal with that.”  Those words felt like glass in _her_ mouth, but she swallowed anyway.  “I’ll talk to McGarrett when he gets back.  Let him know to keep us off the partner roster.  Or… I’ll look into a transfer.”

There was silence and when Kono looked over to her cousin she saw the pained look.  “No. No, don’t.   I don’t hate you, Kono,” he said.  “I just… I just don’t understand you anymore.  I don’t think I have for a while now.”

“I haven’t changed, cousin,” Kono told him, her own jaw tight.  Chin looked sharply at her.

“You have.  I blame Fryer for most of it, but yes, you have.  And now… _this…_ ” he spat the last word out as if it was rancid.  Kono sighed again.  It was a loaded sentence, not even scratching the surface of what truly bothered him, and there was only so much she could defuse effectively.  She’d start with the ‘this’.

“Adam and I…” she started.

“ _Noshimuri_ is _not_ the type of person you should be talking to, Kono!” he gritted out.  She let out an angry laugh.

“Talking?  Is that the new euphemism for ‘sleeping with’?  Or are you just purposefully being naïve?” she goaded.  If this was going to be a fight, why not go all the way?

His dark eyes were fiery when the snapped over to look at her.  “What are you thinking, Kono?!”

_What are you thinking, Kono?_

Oh, she’d heard that one before, just not from Chin.

_I can’t_.

This whole situation warranted almost the same response to Chin’s emotional, unspoken plea.

“I’m thinking that I’m enjoying the company of a nice, good-looking, successful man who likes me,” she said with a nonchalant shrug.  Chin’s glower deepened.

“Nice?  Adam Noshimuri is not a _nice_ man.  Yakuza, Kono!  He is the heir – and most likely the new head – of the goddamn Yakuza!” he slammed his free hand to the steering wheel.  Calm Chin had left the building _and_ booked a flight off the island apparently.

“You forget that he has been running the family’s _legitimate_ business in New York for the last eight years,” Kono gritted out.

“And why do you think he’s suddenly in Hawaii, Kono?  Think about it!  His father is missing.  They have _no_ legitimate business in Hawaii that doesn’t have some draw in to the Yakuza…”  He let her put two and two together.

“I’m a grown woman, Chin.  I can make decisions that _don’t_ need approval from you,” she said with a dismissing sniff, looking out the window as they pulled up to their destination.

“That’s your fallback when you don’t have a logical argument, Kono,” Chin warned.  She shrugged as she opened the door and got out.

“But you can’t say it isn’t true,” she retorted.  He let out a small growl of frustration as he, too, got out of the vehicle.  That growl turned into a deep frown as he saw who was waiting for them.

“Well, well, well… Hawaii Five-0…”

“You’re like a goddamn bad penny,” Chin growled.  Their welcome wagon just looked amused.

“Someone took your muzzle off, Kelly.  Kono, maybe you should try to find that for him?” came the sarcastic response.  Kono shook her head.

“Not a good time, Captain Fryer.  Perhaps you should both muzzle it?” she told him.  He just raised an eyebrow at her, looking even more amused.

“What’s Five-0 doing slumming it? Isn’t this a little below your league?” he asked.  Kono smiled.

“Can say the same for you, can’t we?” she asked.  Fryer chuckled.

“Touché.”

“Slow day,” she shrugged.  Fryer nodded, a knowing smirk in place.

“Helps it’s the high rent district, too, of course,” he said, indicating the Governor’s mansion just down the street.

“You two done playing nice?” Chin asked, still holding a less-than-minor grudge over the whole UC operation.  “We have work to do…”

“Keep your pants on, Lieutenant,” the other man said.  “I’ve got two uniforms inside and two more on the perimeter.  They’ve cleared the scene.”

“We should…” Chin started, but was cut off as a gunshot rang out.  All three drew their weapons and started in towards the house.

“It came from the back yard,” Kono said.  Chin nodded towards her and she started winding her way around the landscaping, keeping her gun up and eyeing the covering vegetation for hidden suspects.  Chin and Fryer kept to her back, following her around the side of the house.  Chin gently tapped her on the shoulder letting her know her back was clear.  She peeked around the corner and could see a person standing there, back to her.  It looked to be an HPD officer, gun in hand.  Kono couldn’t see anyone else so she slowly stepped around the corner.  She raised her gun up higher and slowly inched closer.

“Put your weapon down, Officer.  I need to see your hands,” she called out, aware that if he startled he could turn and shoot first.

“Kono, there’s a body,” Chin’s voice alerted her.  She glanced off of the office for a moment and there was a body in front of him.

“He was going to kill me,” the officer mumbled in disbelief, eyes trained on the body in shock.  It took him a moment, but he finally held up his hands.  Chin moved in quickly, to retrieve the weapon.  Fryer came in behind Kono as she approached the fallen officer.

Chin called in an officer down and she leaned down to try and catch a pulse.  There wasn’t one.

“He’s not one of mine,” Fryer said.  She looked up at him and he had a confused frown on his face, gun still trained on the body.

“What?” she asked.  He shook his head.

“That is not a responding officer.  I sent Reyes and Morgan on the perimeter.  Reyes is the shooter… _that_ is not Morgan…”

Kono stood and raised her weapon.  “We’ve got a problem then.  This scene isn’t secure…”

Chin relayed the information quickly over the phone before hanging up and raising his own weapon.

“Go.  I’ve got you covered here.”  Kono nodded and indicated for Fryer to lead the way.  He quickly headed over to the open patio door.  Scanning the entry quickly, he went in for the left.  Kono immediately followed taking the right.

“Clear,” Fryer said softly.  “Head towards the hallway, I’ve got your back.”  Kono nodded as she followed the room around towards where the bedrooms were.  She cleared the corner and started down the hallway.  There were three bedrooms and a bathroom.  Kono indicated she would take the rooms on the left.  Fryer nodded and went towards the first on the right.

Kono stepped into the first room.  Not a thing was out of place… the only problem was, a dead officer lay just beyond the bed.  His throat was slit.  She swallowed hard before quickly clearing under the bed and the closet.  As she exited the room she caught Fryer’s eye.  She shook her head and motioned she’d found one officer.  He let out a deep breath before nodding to the other two rooms.

Kono found the bathroom clear.  She quietly entered the room Fryer was in, lowering her gun as she watched him standing over the bodies of two more officers.  All she could think for the moment was that these men had died while they’d all stood outside.

“FIVE-0” a shout came from outside of the room, startling the two of them.  It was Steve’s voice.

“It’s clear!” Kono called back.  “We’re back here…”  Heavy footfalls preceded Steve and Danny’s arrival.

“What the hell…” Danny exclaimed as he saw the fallen officers.  Steve’s eyes caught on Kono’s.

“You okay?” he asked.  She nodded.

“Chin?” Kono asked back.

“Out back with Lori,” he said.  She nodded once before holstering her gun.  The guys did the same.

“Captain Fryer.  Long time, no see,” Steve greeted without much fanfare, staring at the other man.

“McGarrett,” the other man acknowledged.

“Oh good.  The gang’s all back together again.  Bring on the bad mojo,” Danny grumbled.

“What the hell happened here?” Steve asked, looking to Fryer and Kono.

“This was not a simple B&E,” Fryer said.  Danny scoffed.

“No shit, Sherlock,” he spit out before he could censor himself.  Steve threw him a look and he just shrugged.

“It wasn’t a B&E,” Fryer repeated with a glare at Danny.  “It was a trap.”

Kono swallowed hard as she looked at the two officers again.  “A trap for who?”

Fryer shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**_To be continued…_ **


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3

~*~*~*~*~*~

Steve knew it was irrational to want to rip Captain Fryer’s head off.  Well… _Danny_ would define it as irrational.  He, personally, thought it was a perfectly reasonable reaction to seeing the man again so soon after the Delano fiasco.  It would have to be at _least_ another decade before the urge to punch him again went away.

And now, standing in the Five-0 headquarters with the man and his constant smug attitude was really testing all of Steve’s patience and willpower.

The team all stood around the smart table looking up at the screen.  A picture of their dead non-cop stared back at them.

“I don’t get it, why can’t we find anything on this guy?” Danny asked, his frustration finally starting to boil over.  “You sure he wasn’t one of yours, Fryer?”

The IA captain just gave Danny one of those superior, ‘are you an idiot?’ looks.  Seriously, why couldn’t Steve just punch him again?  His fingers itched to do so.

“If he was one of _mine_ , Detective, don’t you think we would have found something on him by now?” Fryer asked.  Danny just glared at the patronizing tone.  Steve wondered if Danny would relent on the irrationality of ripping off of heads at this point.  He’d have to ask later.

“Well, let’s think about that, shall we?  Considering what you’ve pulled in the past…” Danny started, but Chin cleared his throat and shook his head, stopping the Jersey boy before he could get on a roll.  It was the last thing they needed.

“ _So_ … we have three dead cops,” Kono stated, trying to bring the situation down to a more manageable animosity level.  “Benjamin Alohilani, four years with HPD.  Partnered with Ricky Laemoa for two of the four years, also deceased.  Patrick Morgan, ten years on the force, a former member of the city’s drug task force.”

“Any connection there?” Steve asked.  Kono shook her head.

“Not that I could find.  I went through his cases from back then, about seven years ago, all are wrapped up tight and tied with a neat bow.  I have a call into a couple of parole officers, but I don’t expect to get anything from that except confirmation of what I already know.  Since then, there have been no flags in his case files,” she said.

“Nothing fishy on Alohilani or Laemoa?” Danny asked.  This time Chin shook his head.

“No.  The two of them had a pretty uneventful career path until this point.  Nothing but their routine traffic stops, an underage bust here and there, some B&E’s, other minor calls.  They were just two young cops,” he said with a shrug.

Lori sighed as she leaned against the smart table.  “Two young cops in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What about our sole survivor?  What was his name again?” Steve asked.

“Reyes,” Kono said, switching the picture on the screen from the John Doe to the officer.  “Marcus Reyes.  Seven years with the department.  Very nearly the same story as Alohilani and Laemoa.”

“Nearly?” Danny asked, crossing his arms.

“Clean record, routine calls - small time stuff,” Fryer piped up as he looked up at the picture.  “His partner, though, had come across a drug deal gone bad a few years back.  He’d been able to call it in and take out one of the dealers before he took one to the chest.  Died a couple of days later from his wound.”

“I remember that,” Chin said with a nod.  “He’d been off duty at the time.  IA had their hands full trying to keep his name clean.  The local media had dubbed him a dirty cop, despite there being evidence to the contrary.”

Fryer stared at Chin for a long moment before nodding, his gaze flicking over Kono briefly.  “Happened to be a lot of dirty cops going around back then.”  There was an unspoken name that everyone was studiously avoiding mentioning in order to keep the peace.  The elephant in the room being Frank Delano.  It had all been around the time his IA investigation had taken off, booting him from the force.

“Okay,” Steve said, trying to process everything.  “So we’ve got four apparently clean cops and an unidentified dead body.  You’d said it was a trap, Fryer.  That leads me to the next obvious question.  And since everyone’s trying so hard not to go there, I will: does Delano have anything to do with this?”

Fryer rubbed a hand over his face before meeting Steve’s eyes.  “I don’t know.  Frank’s organization was a much larger fish to fry, in all actuality.  Taking Frank down didn’t necessarily take care of the organization.  Kono’s undercover had only been one small piece of a very large puzzle…”

“What are you saying?” Chin asked with a frown.  Fryer looked back to Kono.

“I’m saying that if I hadn’t been over-ridden, Kono would have had a lot more work to do,” he said plainly.  Steve looked to Kono too.  She didn’t look surprised, which surprised him.  There’d been more to the story than they’d all been privy to.  Not that they’d been privy to much… or _anything_ really until the messy end.

“What changed?” Danny asked, not liking that idea either, apparently.  Fryer snorted a quick, humorless laugh.

“The Governor…” he started, with a pointed look at Lori.  “… didn’t want me disrupting the Five-0 dynamic more than it already had been.  What he doesn’t understand is that Kono is vastly underutilized here.  She has a head for undercover and could have _easily_ gotten further into Delano’s organization.  We could have taken it apart piece by piece.”

“So Delano _could_ be involved?” Lori asked, frowning.  Fryer just shook his head.

“What do you think, sweetheart?” he asked scathingly.  “We _all_ know that once you lop off a head of a major organized unit, another head just grows back in its place.  And that’s only if the original head isn’t playing puppeteer from wherever it’s fallen.  So _yes_ , Delano could very well be involved.”

Lori looked like she wanted to bite back at his rude statement, but Steve held up his hand.

“Okay, okay, okay… let’s not start jumping to conclusions.  We need to look at all of the angles.  We haven’t necessarily ruled anything out at this point.  We need to figure out who John Doe is.  And we need to figure out why we can’t figure that out.  Lori, I need you to do a more in depth trace.  He isn’t in any system as far as we can tell, not even the DMV.  Find out why,” he ordered. Lori nodded.  Steve turned to Chin.

“I want you to take the Delano angle.  Try to find any outgoing communications from him.  He may be locked up, but that doesn’t mean he’s silent.  Check his visitor logs, check his associates and _their_ communications…”

“I’ll take the Delano angle, Boss,” Kono spoke up.  All noise ceased to exist at that point.  A pin could be heard hitting the floor as all eyes were suddenly on her.  It didn’t seem to bother her.  She shrugged.  “It makes the most sense.  I know Delano.  I know his associates.  Chin would be wasting time trying to make the connections that I already know.”

Fryer smirked as he looked over at Steve.  “Kono’s right, McGarrett.”  Steve clenched his jaw as it was on the tip of his tongue to tell Fryer where to go.  Instead, he just stared at Kono.

“Danny goes with you,” he finally relented.  Kono just smirked.

“Don’t trust me, boss?” she asked.  Steve opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by Fryer’s laughter.  He turned to look at the man, who was looking right back at him.

“What?” he asked, frown fully in place.  Fryer held up his hands.

“Nah, not saying a thing.  I’m staying out of it.  Gonna save myself from the inevitable punch,” he said.

“Keep that in mind since you and I are going to talk to the owners of the house.  They just got back from their vacation,” Steve told him.  Fryer looked heavenward before shaking his head.

“Oh _good_.  This should be fun,” the IA captain said sardonically.  Danny grinned.

“See, I’m not the only one.  Might want to grab another layer of Kevlar, Captain,” he warned.  Steve rolled his eyes.

“Not everyone is as sensitive as you, Danno,” he said.  Danny looked shocked.

“Sen… _sensitive_?  I am not…”

“Hey.  We’ve got some work to be doing.  Let’s do it, huh?” Steve interrupted.  “Chin, I need you to follow-up with Reyes.  And maybe talk to Morgan’s widow as well.”   The other man nodded and Lori was the first to break off, going to start her search for a needle in a haystack.  Danny muttered about having to call Grace before heading out, and Chin quickly started pulling up information he would need on the smart table.

“Kono?” Steve caught her attention.  “A minute?”  She nodded as she followed him to his office.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll just entertain myself here,” Fryer called to the two of them.  Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head.  The sooner he got that man out of his day to day life, the better for everyone.  He closed the door behind them.

“Howzit, Boss?” Kono asked casually.

“What else haven’t you told me, Kono?” Steve asked with no fanfare.  She arched a brow.

“What makes you think I haven’t told you everything?” she asked.  He tilted his head to give her a look.  The fact that she asked that question in the first place wasn’t a big flag or anything.  Her time undercover had honed her evasiveness and emotional response, he’d seen that change almost immediately.  But she was still Kono, and he still knew who she was underneath all of that.

“The fact that you weren’t surprised at Fryer’s original plan for you tells me there’s a lot more to the story than you care to share,” he said.  Kono shrugged.

“It was personal,” she said.  Steve huffed a frustrated breath at the casual declaration.

“That whole fucking _thing_ was personal, in case you’ve completely forgotten,” he said.  Kono glared at him.

“Don’t I know it,” she spit out.  Nothing got more personal than your name being smeared in the media and among your team.  He stared at her for a few seconds more before letting out a breath.  Things were starting to click in his head as he put what he knew then together with what he knew now.

“Fryer’s been trying to recruit you, hasn’t he?” he concluded.  She didn’t say anything as she stared back at him.  He knew he was right.  Fryer had thrown around a few words here and there to tip him off.  Underestimate… Underutilized…  It had been a covert sales pitch since day one, if Steve really thought about it.  It also explained to some extent why Fryer hadn’t wanted to loop Five-0 in on the whole mess – the man knew there were no leaks in the Governor-vetted task force.

“It had been mentioned as a way to get my badge back.  And… there’ve been a few calls over the past couple of weeks,” Kono finally admitted.

“What have _you_ said?”  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer as he watched her shrug.

“I told Fryer that I had some things here that required my attention.  Doesn’t stop him from asking though,” she said, giving him a long look.  “Have you located Hiro Noshimuri?”

He fought the urge to smile.  Kono Kalakaua wasn’t one to mince words or tiptoe around a sensitive subject.  But that very subject sobered him quickly.

“Are you kidding?  I couldn’t even get a hold of Joe,” he told her.  Kono nodded but didn’t say anything.

“What about Adam Noshimuri?” he asked in return.

“I… uh… I couldn’t get anything through him.  He’s notoriously tight-lipped and careful,” she said quickly, meeting his eyes.  “There’s been nothing I could even remotely link to Joe or Hiro.”  Steve nodded.  It was as he suspected.

“Okay.  We’ll still keep an eye on him, but I’m going to have to try to find another connection.  If I could just catch a trail somewhere…  Joe’s too good at this.  And he’ll have the Yakuza hunting him down if we can’t find Hiro,” he sighed.  Kono shifted and looked out the office door.

“Anyway… I should probably go corral Danny before he starts nipping at Fryer’s heels,” she said, with a small smile.  Steve smiled back.  She turned to go, but turned back quickly and met his gaze.

“Listen… I’m sorry for pretty much demanding to take over the Delano lead,” she said.  Steve nodded.

“You were right.  It makes sense that you’re the one to do that.  It’s just…” he stopped, not really knowing what to say.  _It’s just still too fresh.  The shock, the confusion, the anger… the fear._   Kono smiled as if she could hear the thoughts.

“Don’t worry, Boss.  I eat guys like Delano for breakfast,” she said, the dimple in her cheek contrasting the bravado.  Steve chuckled as he straightened to follow her out of the office.

“If you can handle Fryer, I don’t doubt it,” he told her.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_Halawa Correctional Facility  
O’ahu_

“I’d like to go on record saying that I’m not quite sure I agree with this plan,” Danny said as he pulled the Camaro into the visitor’s parking.  Kono gave him a smile as she unclipped the seatbelt.

“I’ve heard your uncertainty,” she said.  Then she wiggled her eyebrows.  “And I raise you a ‘why not just go to the source?’”  Danny shut the car off and stared at his hands on the steering wheel.

“I know I make the jokes about it.  But I’m going to say this as serious as I can,” he said, looking over to her.  “Stop… taking… pages… from… McGarrett’s… playbook.  You’re developing a bad habit.”  She just laughed as she pushed open the door.  When he didn’t move to get out, she bent down to look into the car.

“Coming?” Danny put his hands together in a pleading motion at her question.

“Please?”  He even added a pout.  She shook her head with a mock pout of her own and shut the door.  Danny quickly opened his door and got out.

“You know, Chin and Lori are the reasonable ones.  I… well, I am the _King_ of Reasonable.  And they are my reasonable minions.  Why I get stuck with the unreasonable 40% of the team 90% of the time, I don’t know,” he grumbled as they made their way into the gates.

“I’m impressed by your averages, brah,” Kono told him, pulling out her identification for the guards.  Danny followed suit.

“We in Jersey are not just good-looking,” he said.  When she looked back at him he gave her a quick air kiss and wink.  Kono just chuckled as they were ushered inside.

“I would never assume as much,” she teased.  They stopped at the guard station and checked in their weapons.  Danny looked around as they were handed their visitor badges.

“I hate coming here.  The ambiance here is very… ‘please visit us, then go home and blow your brains out’,” he said.  Kono smirked as the guard led them to their room.

“I’m sure the interior decorator makes government wages, just like us,” she said. But she too studied the cinder block walls.  “But if you ask nicely, maybe they’ll let you send some Bieber posters to liven up the place.”

Danny chuckled evilly.  “Now _that_ would be a punishment befitting nearly all of the crimes in here.”

“Just wait until Grace catches on,” Kono warned.  “You will never recover from the girly screaming.”

“Perish the thought, I beg of you,” he said as he reached out and pulled one of the chairs away from the table.  Kono pulled out the other chair and sat down.  It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes later that the door opened again.

 “Kono, Kono, Kono.  It’s so _nice_ to see your lovely face again,” Frank Delano purred as he was led into the room, hands shackled in front of his body.  She just scoffed from her seat.

“Orange is _so_ not your color, Frank.  You look… pale.  How are those bullet holes healing, by the way?” Kono asked, nodding to his already healed shoulder.  He narrowed his eyes as he sat down across from her.  Danny decided to jump in before things got too out of hand.

“Save the predictable threats, Slick.  We’re here to ask you a few questions,” he said.  Delano gave Kono one more long look before looking over to the other man.

“I assumed as much, Detective Williams, as I couldn’t imagine this being a social call,” he drawled, a sarcastic smile on his face.  Danny just smiled back.

“I am _so_ sending you a dozen Bieber posters,” he told the man.  Kono quickly pulled a picture up on her phone.  She turned the screen to Delano so he could see their John Doe.

“Recognize this guy at all?” she asked.  Delano leaned forward to get a better look.  He studied it for a moment or two before shaking his head.

“Can’t say that I do,” he sat back.  “That was easy.  We done?”  Danny narrowed his eyes.

“Not quite.”  This time he held up a picture on his phone.  Delano rolled his eyes before he leaned closer again.

“Ahhh.  That’s Officer Morgan,” he said.  He lifted his shackled hands to let his index finger touch his nose.  “I got that one right, I know.”  He winked at Danny.

“Know why anyone would want him dead?” Kono asked.  Delano sat back in his seat again and looked over at her.

“He’s dead? Such a shame,” he said, his insincerity very apparent.  Kono wasn’t surprised at his general lack of humanity.  She’d been a part of it for a while.

“He’s dead and so are two other officers,” she told him.  Delano just looked bored.

“You want me to try to identify just _one_ person who wants to see people in uniform dead?  You realize that would be a very long list, right?  C’mon, Kono.  I thought you were smarter than this.  After all, you’re Vince’s prize pupil, right?” he scolded.

“So you’re saying that you’ve got nothing,” Danny summed up.  Delano just smirked.

“Nothing that would help you, Detective.  We done now?  I’m missing my TV show.”

“You know, Frank, I would have thought that getting caught would have humbled you a little bit,” Kono commented as she sat back and watched him.  Delano watched her right back.

“You know, Kono…” he mocked back.  “It’s funny what kind of circles you’re running in.  You played the part of dirty cop _so_ well.  I wonder if it’s beginning to become natural to you.”  Danny frowned in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” he asked.  Kono shook her head as she leaned both elbows onto the table, staring at the man in front of her.

“Being a dirty cop, being _you_ , will never be natural to me.  I’m a cop.  Period.  A part of Five-0 and the group that took _you_ down.  We’ll continue to do that until there are no more of _you_ left,” she growled at him.  Delano smiled again.

“I love an optimist.”  There was a threat hanging in there somewhere, both Kono and Danny knew it.  Whether he was involved in their current case or not, he was still someone they would have to keep their eye on.  Fryer was right.  A head never went away…

~*~*~*~*~*~

He disconnected the call and sat back in the chair with a huff.  She wasn’t answering.  Danny had returned to headquarters from Halawa about 30 minutes ago without Kono.  When he’d asked where she was, Danny had told him that as soon as they’d parked she’d been out of the car and right into hers cheerfully saying she had to meet someone.

Chin Ho Kelly was a man who learned from his mistakes.  And with Delano and Fryer back in the mix again – the ghost of the undercover operation still very fresh – he knew he would be making another huge mistake if he didn’t have a quick heart to heart with McGarrett.

So, he sat in the man’s office, waiting for him and Fryer to get back from questioning the family.  Lori kept throwing questioning looks his way, but he ignored her.  The last thing he needed was her interference.  Especially when he questioned her loyalty to Five-0 outside of one Steve McGarrett – which was another landmine entirely.  Ever since Fryer dropped the bombshell about what the extended plans for Kono had been, Chin had wondered at the blonde’s involvement in the planning.  She had the Governor’s ear, _especially_ in terms of Five-0.  It was why Lori was there in the first place and it would be highly unlikely that she _hadn’t_ known about the undercover operation at some point in its duration… and that worried him.

His thoughts on the subject were interrupted as he heard Fryer loudly enter the building.

“All I’m saying, McGarrett, is that maybe the soft skills chapter in your little Navy handbook or whatever could use a little updating, you know?”

Chin could see the Five-0 commander shrug.  “It got the questions answered, didn’t it?  And yours weren’t much better.”  Fryer shook his head with a chuckle.

“Next to you, I look like a goddamn teddy bear,” he said.  Steve looked appalled at the thought.  He was about to say something until his gaze caught on Chin’s location.  He waved off Fryer as he entered his office.

“What’s going on, Chin?” Steve asked as he closed the door behind him.  Chin cleared his throat uncomfortably as he let Steve settle back in.

“I learned a lesson that day we opened fire on Kono, Steve.  I learned that no matter how much I want to, I can’t worry about her and protect her in the same way.  The only reason I _didn’t_ come to you right away was because, at that point, it wasn’t Five-0 business.  She was no longer with us.  And she was _Kono_.  She is my family, Five-0 or not.  I thought I could handle it on my own.  I didn’t realize… well, there were a lot of things I didn’t realize, but…” Chin stopped.  He swallowed hard.

“Chin?” Steve asked, a concerned look on his face.

“I didn’t realize how deep it _could_ get without me even being aware,” Chin concluded.  His eyes met Steve’s.  “There were a lot of things I learned that day.  But that was the main one.  And that’s why I’m here.”

“What’s going on?  Where’s Kono?” Steve asked.  Chin took a deep breath.

“Adam Noshimuri,” he said.  The other man’s eyes went wide for a moment before he schooled his face into Danny’s often mentioned ‘aneurysm face’.

“Listen Chin…” he started, crossing his arms and leaning back against his desk.  “I… I asked her to keep tabs on Noshimuri while I was gone.  She hasn’t gotten much from him, and I don’t think she will.  I’m looking for a different angle on that, so you don’t have to worry.”

Chin’s eyes flashed in anger as he stood.  “ _You?_   You _asked_ her?”  Now he was starting to understand some of the evasiveness she seemed to employ in their arguments.

“Chin, it wasn’t anything overt.  If it makes you feel better, I’ll pull her back.  Danny can track him,” Steve said.  This time, it all finally clicked as to what was going on and Chin let out a harsh chuckle of understanding.  His little cousin was getting good at fooling people.

“I’d really like to see you try that Steve,” he said, giving the other man a wry look.  “I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as asking her to pull back.”

“What do you mean?”  The look on the commander’s face told Chin that the man didn’t have a single clue as to what had happened while he was gone.

“Steve…”  He stopped.  There wasn’t really anything he could say, that he _wanted_ to say.  So, he gently laid the manila folder he had with him on Steve’s desk.  He looked at the folder and then up at Steve.  “I was worried.  She was always busy, not answering her phone, or needing to go someplace.  It was an abrupt change and similar to what happened with Fryer.  So, I had her followed.  I’m not proud of it… but it appears I was right to be concerned.”

Steve looked down at the folder, surprisingly hesitant to pick it up.  “What is it?”

Chin shook his head.  “It’ll tell you everything.  Everything that I can’t.”  He got up and left.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued…_


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 4

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Five-0 Headquarters_

Steve sat at his desk and stared at the pictures fanned out in front of him.  Chin had been true to his word.  He’d had someone track Kono just as she’d tracked Adam Noshimuri.  And what Steve saw… well, it wasn’t anything he’d expected.  Now, he understood what had been the cause of Danny’s concern regarding Chin and Kono.  He wished he didn’t.

It was late and he’d sent everyone home hours ago.  It was only when he was alone that he felt brave enough to open the folder on his desk that had taunted him since the moment Chin had left it there.

Steve rubbed a hand over his face as he sat back in his chair.  He would be the first to admit that he didn’t handle emotional responses well.  And he would likely be the last to admit that his response to the undercover operation all those weeks ago had been _all_ emotional, just as he’d told Kono it had been _all_ personal.  It hadn’t gone well for him... interrogation had been the moment when his control had regrettably snapped, letting his fear get the best of him.  Yet Kono had been the one to keep the level head amid it all.  She’d been the one to point out all of the obvious – her standing in the operation that would keep Tricia Joyner alive, the fact that Delano would spot any tail or wire on her… those were all things that he _knew_ and would understand in most circumstances.  But in that one particular circumstance, he just couldn’t _comprehend_ it.  There’d been a lot of static noise in his head since the moment Chin had first told him about opening fire on Kono’s getaway care.  He hadn’t been in control at all, and that was very unfamiliar to him.  If he was in control, she would be safe.  At least, that’s the rationale he kept telling himself.

It was what was keeping him from making his response to this new situation an emotional one.  Because she _wasn’t_ safe and he needed that control.  He was absolutely certain of that.  Where her level head had been keenly present and obvious in Fryer’s undercover operation… _this_ situation he could feel that Kono’s usually very level head was compromised as he looked down at the pictures again.

A picture of Adam and Kono at a cozy dinner.  A picture of a sweet kiss on what was their room balcony.  A picture of them talking closely in an empty hallway, much too closely to just be acquaintances.  There were multiple other pictures of multiple other encounters.

Rather than go with his first gut response – _anger_ and something else that he’d just begun to wonder at – he decided to look at everything with his investigator’s eyes.

The fact that these pictures were time-elapsed over a couple of weeks from a regular hotel and _not_ the Noshimuri compound told Steve more than just the obvious.  It also gave credence to Kono’s comment of “notoriously tight-lipped and careful.”  It all told him that Noshimuri seemed to want to protect Kono as well.  The man didn’t want her involved in Noshimuri business.  And that meant things were more personal than Steve wanted to believe.  It meant that there were some sort of feelings involved.

What Adam hadn’t seemed to realize – but Steve could – was that if _Chin_ could keep track of his whereabouts this easily, _anyone_ could.  And that meant that whatever protection Adam was trying to provide was, in effect, useless.  Kono was now a known presence in Adam Noshimuri’s life.  In Yakuza business.  And that meant her life was in danger.  Again.  This time, at his urging.  Granted, his surprisingly naïve urging… but his urging nonetheless.

Looking at a picture of Adam and Kono, of a moment of very genuine affection, Steve could only guess that either Kono didn’t realize that… or she didn’t care.  Neither one of the options sat well with him.

The chirp and buzz of his cell phone alerted him to an incoming call.  Steve glanced over at the screen and saw the name “Cath” pop up.  Usually, talking with Catherine was a bright spot in a day.  It came with years of familiarity and the knowledge of the unpredictability of their schedules.  But right now, it was truly at the bottom of the list of things he wanted to do. With a particularly brutal curse at himself, he reached over and hit ignore.  He’d talk to her in the morning.

Steve quickly looked over the pictures once more before putting them all neatly back in the unassuming manila folder.  There were going to be problems.  That was readily apparent the moment he’d seen Chin sitting alone in his office again.  But, they had bigger problems at the moment.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Next Morning  
O’ahu Cemetery_

The sight of the flag draped coffin always got to her.  It had been that way since she was a kid and one of her distant cousins had been killed in a car wreck while on duty.  The sadness of it all was so pervasive she’d felt it down to the bone even then…

Suffice it to say, police funerals were pretty much the low of any day, week, month… year.  Today, there were _three_ of them.  In the nearly two years out of the academy, she’d been lucky enough to not have to perform this particular heartbreaking duty.  Until now.

Five-0 stood with the rest of the Honolulu Police Department, dressed in their dress blues, to salute their fallen comrades.  Out of the corner of her eye, Kono saw Catherine Rollins standing stoically between Steve and Danny, decked in her Navy dress whites.  It had taken the Five-0 group by surprise when she’d shown up this morning.  While Kono was appreciative of the woman’s respect for the fallen policemen, she tried her best to try to avoid interaction with the woman.  It wasn’t that she _disliked_ Catherine, per say.  It was just that there always seemed to be some sort of awkward forcefulness when they did meet, a want for decent conversation.  And Kono could pick a subject out of the sky with pretty much everybody, which is what she found most odd.

When the first shot of the three-volley salute rang out, it took her by surprise and couldn’t help the small flinch.  Chin nudged her elbow from her side and she looked up.  There was concern there, even amid the censure, and she quirked her lip up in a split second of a smile to reassure him.  He nodded tightly and looked back to where the rifle team finished their last shot.  Kono caught a similar expression on Steve’s face as he looked over at her.  When his eyes dropped before refocusing on what _should_ have their attention, Kono realized that he knew.  And she knew how he knew.  She grit her teeth to keep from turning to glare at Chin.    Her anger at her cousin was so sudden and unexpected that it took all her willpower to get it under control.

It was when others around her started walking by her that she realized that the funeral had come to a close.  Kono swallowed hard as she watched the devastated families gather around their loved ones caskets in a moment of private grief.  She took off her cap and tried to gather her wayward emotions together again.

“We should go,” Chin said from her side, touching her elbow.  The anger was still simmering underneath the surface, though.

“Traitor,” Kono bit out to her cousin through clenched teeth.  Chin turned to look at her with surprise before his face calmed into his usual expression.  He was a smart guy.  It didn’t take long for him to realize what she was referring to.  He let out a breath.

“Kono…”  She didn’t want to hear it, though.  She spun on her heel and started walking away.  The ghost of Chin’s fingers just missing grabbing her arm didn’t even make her pause.  Kono just continued walking away, not even staying to say anything to the rest of the team.  Without a second thought, she pulled out her cell phone.  As she neared her car, her finger hesitated over the dial button.

“Kono!” a voice called.  Recognizing it, she slipped her phone back into her pocket and turned to the owner.

“Captain,” she answered back as Fryer approached.  He didn’t say anything until he reached her side.

“Thought you should know… I’ve had a tail for most of the day,” he told her, shoving his hands into his pockets.  Kono tilted her head.

“A tail?” she asked, confused.  Then she thought about it.  “Delano…”  Fryer nodded.  She tried to surreptitiously look around.  Fryer smiled.

“You won’t find him around the edges.  He was in the mix,” he told her, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards the crowd of police officers.

“What?”

“He was in uniform.  I’m pretty sure he slipped away by now, but he was there,” Fryer said with a shake of his head.

“You’re not just getting paranoid now, are you?” Kono asked.  Fryer rolled his eyes.

“Hard to be paranoid when the guy is staring right at you for 20 minutes,” he said.

“Think Delano’s spooked?  Or is it revenge?” Kono asked.  Fryer shrugged.

“Don’t know.  But… my gut tells me he’s involved in these killings somehow.  I don’t know how, or how deep.  It could be he’s after revenge too.  We did send him to prison.  And Frank isn’t one to _not_ hold a grudge,” he said.

“Great,” Kono muttered.  When her phone buzzed, she didn’t even need to look at the caller ID to know who it was.  _Adam_ …  She looked back to Fryer.  “Well, I’ll leave you to tell the boss the latest update.  Better you than me.”

“You’re a real pal,” Fryer told her, looking over his shoulder to where Steve stood.  Fryer turned back to look at Kono.  “Question out of pure curiosity…”

“Those never go well,” she warned.  He just smiled.

“Anything between you and McGarrett?” he asked bluntly, no sugar coating and regardless of the consequences.  Kono resisted the immediate urge to look back to where the Five-0 commander stood with the rest of the team.  Even not looking she could tell that he, Chin and Danny were trying very hard to not be curious by her conversation.

“Nope,” she said lightly.  “Not sure why you’d ask that question.”  Fryer chuckled.

“Like I said, pure curiosity.  That whole undercover operation… it just seemed…” he stopped and shook his head.  He chuckled again.  “And why would you tell an IA guy anyway?”  The question was obviously rhetorical.  “But, just so you know… transfer option is still open.”  With that he gave her a sly wink before turning to go let the rest of the team in on his most recent discovery.

Kono watched him go for a few minutes, and when she caught Chin’s eye she turned back around and resumed her trek to her car.  She wanted to chuckle at Fryer’s new recruiting tactic, but there was that pit in her stomach feeling that kept her from doing so.  Instead, she pulled the phone out from her pocket and dialed a quick number.  She smiled when the familiar voice came on the line.

“Hi.  Sorry, we just finished.  You busy?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Ehukai Beach_  
Banzai Pipeline - North Shore  
Later that day

Kono lay on her surfboard in the water and watched as some of the locals tried to tame the famous pipeline.  Back in the day, she would have been just as eager to try out the testing waves, but now, she was content to be a part of the water, wherever that may be.

“Quitting on me already?” a voice asked from her side.  She smiled before she looked over at Adam as he straddled his own surfboard.  The sun was just beginning to set behind her and it cast him in a warm orange glow as he smiled back at her.

“Nah, brah… just relaxing.  I’m glad you suggested coming here.  A day out of Honolulu was just what I needed,” she said.  He paddled closer to her and leaned close for a quick kiss.  He pulled back and studied her for a moment.

“You’re in your element here,” he commented.  She smiled.

“Water and I have always gotten along.  You, on the other hand,” she teased.  “You could use a few more lessons.”  He grinned.

“Yeah, well, surfing isn’t _quite_ as popular on the Hudson River.  New York City is a long way from Hawaii and it’s been a long while since I’d been on a board,” he told her.  Kono sat up and straddled her board as well.

“I’m glad you came out with me,” she told him appreciatively.  None of the other men she’d seen in the past had ever really given her passion much thought beyond how she’d looked in a bikini.  Adam had actually been very enthusiastic when suggesting they do this, about wanting to re-learn how to manage a board after being away for so long.  He watched her for a moment.

“Like I said, you’re in your element.  I didn’t want to miss that,” he said seriously, his dark gaze holding hers.  Then he smiled, a teasing glint in his eye.  “And I’d totally miss the stunning view of you in that bikini from the shore…”  Kono laughed as she reached out and splashed him with water.  Typical man, underneath it all.  Adam reached out and grabbed her wrist playfully, tugging her closer and finally reaching out with both arms to pull her onto his board.  She laughed into his kiss as he gently nipped at her lips.  With a sigh, Kono wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself sink into the moment of being in his arms.

A few catcalls from passing surfers as they rode the gentle waves back into the beach for the night broke into the private moment.  When Adam pulled back, his eyes roamed over her face happily.  Kono smiled back, keeping her arms loosely wrapped around his neck.

“Dinner on the beach?” she asked.  “Then…”

Adam smiled at her regretfully.  “Then you’ve got to get back.  I know.”  Kono nodded.  She knew that he needed to get back to Honolulu as well.  There was only so much of the real world they could avoid.  Adam knew her job.  And she knew his.  It hadn’t ever been a secret between them, but an obstacle to maneuver around.

“Hey,” Adam called her softly before she could transfer back to her own board to begin the paddle back to shore.  She looked at him.  “I’m glad that when we’re together, I’m just Adam and you’re just Kono.”

Kono grinned, her dimple peeking out.  “Who else would we be?”  With a quick kiss, she extracted herself from him and pushed herself onto her board.  She knew the question was rhetorical, because Adam Noshimuri wasn’t just _Adam_.  And Kono Kalakaua wasn’t just _Kono_.  But for a while, they could escape and just _be_.  It was nice they could do that.

Back on dry land there were icons on their waiting phones indicating they both couldn’t avoid real life for much longer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_The next day_

“Where the hell were you yesterday?” Danny asked as Kono walked into headquarters.  She frowned at him.

“I’m sorry.  Did I miss something?  I thought I had a day off.  So I took it,” she snapped back at him.  “What crawled up your butt?  And by the way?  Leaving me four messages to ‘call you’?  You’ve got to do better than that.”  Danny scoffed.

“And you _didn’t_ call me,” he reminded her.  Kono smiled as she walked to her office.  Danny, predictably, followed on her heels.

“I didn’t get back to town until late, Danny.  It would have been pointless to call you at two in the morning,” she said.  Danny frowned.

“Two?  A.M?” he asked.  Kono raised an eyebrow.

“That would be the designation for morning, yes, Danny,” she told him.

“You realize I had to deal with a crabby McGarrett _and_ a crabby Chin Ho, right?  Not to mention Lori, who couldn’t help but ask questions about it, all day long?” he asked her.  Kono rolled her eyes.  She had a feeling she knew why both men were crabby.  And she knew that Lori’s questioning of Steve and her cousin would only agitate them more.  Which would clearly agitate one Danny Williams even _more_.  Had to be a fun day.  She was sorry she missed it.

“If that’s the only reason why you’re in here complaining, I’m sure we’ve got better things to do,” she reminded him.  He eyed her for a moment.

“Reyes is dead,” he said with no preamble.  Her head snapped up from the report she was reading to look at him.

“What?”

“That’s what I was calling about.  We got the call about 7:00pm last night.  He’s dead, and so is his girlfriend.  Shot in their apartment,” he said, hands in his pockets as he leaned against the door frame.  Kono frowned.

“A hit to finish the job?” she asked.  Danny nodded.

“That’s our current theory,” he told her.  Kono rubbed a hand over her face.

“Shit,” she muttered.  When Danny didn’t say anything in return, she looked over at him.  He was studying her.  Kono frowned.  “What?”  The man pursed his lips as he stepped further into her office and closed the door.  Not that anyone was really there yet to overhear their conversation.  It was precautionary…

“What’s going on?” he asked seriously.  Her eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean?”  Danny rolled his eyes.

“Don’t bullshit me, Kono.  I know something’s going on.  First, you and Chin.  And now Steve’s all squirrelly,” he said.  Danny held up a hand to ward off her inevitable response to his description of their boss.  “The point is I thought we were friends, not just co-workers.  I thought we could talk.”  Kono let out a small huff of exasperation.

“Really?  You’re playing that card?” she asked, hoping to deflect a bit.  Danny walked closer to her desk and clutched at the chair in front of it.

“YES!  Yes, I’m playing _that_ card, Kono.  Because I don’t want what happened with the Fryer incident to happen again, okay?  That was too close,” he said.  He let out a breath.  “I thought whatever it’s been this time would get handled.  I thought Chin would get this figured out, or Steve, because when it comes to dealing with that confrontation thing they have the switch to turn off the emotion.  I admit, they’re better at it than me.  But now…”

Kono came around her desk and reached out to grip Danny’s shoulders at his sudden troubled look.  Her team was important to her, and she hadn’t realized how much her operation with Fryer had shaken everyone.  They’d been so good at not talking about it that she’d figured everyone had just simply moved on.  But now their heightened reactions to her behaviors and actions were telling her differently.  It simultaneously broke and warmed her heart.

“Danny, it’s nothing to worry about, okay?  Chin and I… we had a bit of a disagreement,” she told him, dropping her arms to her side.  “And Steve?  He’s just over-reacting.  He’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“So you’re not going to tell me?” he asked.  Kono looked to the ground and shook her head.  She hated herself for it, but she needed to not have Danny angry at her too.  It was selfish, she knew.  And frankly, her _not_ telling him could make him just as angry if she _did_ tell him.

“Okay,” he said.  Kono looked up at him in shock.  He didn’t look angry, he didn’t look disappointed.  He just looked a little sad.  “ _If_ you want to tell me, I will listen.”

Kono nodded, a grateful smile on her face.  “I know, Danny.  And I’ll keep that in mind.  Thank you.”

Danny nodded too.  He was about to say something back but his cell phone interrupted.

“Williams,” he answered.  Kono watched as the blond man nodded.  “Alright.  Kono’s here with me, we’ll head over there.  See you in fifteen.”

“What’s up?” she asked.  Danny let out a breath.

“There’s been another break-in.  This time, the family _was_ home.  Same M.O., same neighborhood…” he said.

“Shit,” she said softly.

“Yeah.  Steve and Lori are already on scene.  Chin is en route.  I told Steve we’d meet them there,” he said.  Kono nodded.

“Let’s go.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Noshimuri Compound_

Adam paced in his office as two of his bodyguards stood at attention at the door.  He knew instinctively that things weren’t going well and it made him nervous.  When the phone finally rang, he was wound pretty tight.

“Hello?” he answered.

“You’ve been sloppy,” the voice on the other end told him.  Adam shook his head, denying it even to himself.

“I haven’t.  I’ve been careful,” he said.

“No, you haven’t, Mr. Noshimuri.  There are things that depend on your cooperation and so far you’ve done an excellent job.  But now, things are beginning to be noticed,” the voice said.

“You’re the only one that knows about her…”

“No, Mr. Noshimuri.  I am _not_ the only one.  You need to tighten up your movements and your organization.  Otherwise I will be forced to take care of the problem myself.  Do we understand each other?”  It was asked pleasantly, but Adam knew better.

“We do.”

“Good.  You will hear from me again.”  The phone disconnected and Adam pocketed the cell phone.  It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d asked _when_ …  It simply wasn’t up to him.

For a brief, fleeting moment, Adam’s mind went back to the North Shore.  It had been the calmest, happiest day he’d experienced to date.  And it made his heart ache to know that it might be the _only_ calm, happy day he would have for a long while.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued..._


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Five

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Beretania Street, Honolulu_

To say their destination was a house was an understatement.  Kono mentally scoffed as she realized her little house could fit in the main foyer of the place that they were now approaching. 

The Camaro pulled up behind a couple of waiting squad cars, which finally slowed Danny’s gushing about Grace’s school play… that he’d seen three times.  Kono couldn’t help but smile at the very obvious doting the divorced father did.  Grace was a lucky little girl to have such an attentive father, especially in the after effects of a broken marriage.  When she opened her mouth to tell him as such, Danny let out a frustrated curse.  Kono gave him a quick raised brow before turning to look at what he’d spotted.

“Goddamn Fryer… he’s a bad freakin’ penny,” the man growled.  Kono looked at Fryer as he was directing some of the younger officers and then turned to look back at Danny.  The conversation they’d had earlier very fresh in her mind, she realized just how in the dark she was keeping him.  Chin and Steve were involved of their own accord and knew what they knew what they did mostly by what could be construed as accident.  She’d have chosen to not tell them just as she was with Danny…  Kono may not be ready to read him in on everything yet, but she could give her friend something.

“Danny…” she called his attention.  He looked over at her with a frown.  As he watched her bite her lip in apprehension, his face smoothed out.

“What’s up?” he asked, the casualness of the question covering his concern.  Kono smiled.

“Fryer offered me a job,” she told him.  It wasn’t much to offer, but it was all she could rationalize in her brain to tell him at this time.  Danny’s casualness transformed into confusion… then revulsion as his face pinched up in a grimace.

“And you’re _thinking_ about it?” he asked with his usual spastic composure when dealing with ridiculous actions.  He’d had some practice with it, after all.  Kono let out a chuckle.

“Some days,” she admitted with a shrug.  Danny opened his mouth to say something, but it suddenly hit him that she’d voluntarily offered this tidbit and closed his mouth again.  He smiled.

“Well then, I’ll just have to do my best to convince you that it would be the wrong decision,” he told her before shoving open the Camaro door and getting out.  Kono grinned, beyond grateful that the man let the subject simmer where it was instead of going after it like a dog with a bone.  It was rare he did that – with the exception of it _never_ happening with Steve – so she took it and wouldn’t look the gift horse in the mouth.  Quickly gathering her professionalism back after the personal turn of the morning, Kono opened her door too and followed the other man towards the house.

The two nodded at one of the awaiting officers in greeting as they approached.

“You head in,” Danny told her.  “I’ll go touch base with Fryer.”  Kono smiled.

“Don’t let him recruit you,” she warned him as he veered in the captain’s direction.  Danny rolled his eyes as he waved her off.  Kono walked into the foyer, her eyes scanning the entrance for any sign of forced entrance, even though she knew that would have already been catalogued.  Chin looked up from where he was crouched taking a picture of a partial footprint.  The look he threw her told her _I know who you were with yesterday and I’m not happy_.  She just looked back at him, nonplussed, before heading back towards the living area.  As she entered the spacious area, she saw Steve and Lori talking with two of the uniformed officers.  Lori didn’t pay her any attention, but Kono caught the look from her boss.  This one said _We’re going to talk later._

Internally, Kono shrugged.  It wasn’t like it _wasn’t_ going to come out at some point.  She’d just hoped that it would have been later than _now_ … much later.  But she was nothing if not adaptable.  She spared the now-approaching Danny a quick look as he entered the area at her back.  The man was frowning… which was a given considered Fryer’s abrasive attitude.  Maybe she _should_ just tell him all about it, save herself the inevitable grief when it all exploded.  She gave herself a quick mental note to do just that when she had another moment alone with the detective as much as she hated giving up a semi-ally in the whole mess.

“So?” Kono asked.  Steve nodded to the officers quickly and approached Kono and Danny.

“Ronald and Susan Riley.  Age 49 and 47 respectively.  Two kids, Jade and Lilah, aged 12 and 10.  Silent alarm went off at 9:30pm last night.  It was silenced 22 seconds later.  When the alarm company called Mr. Riley to verify everything was alright, the man had been woken up.  _He_ hadn’t turned the alarm off,” Steve started.

“Riley did a check of the house to ensure everything was alright.  The perp must have hid as he did the check.  Thinking things were okay, Riley must have started back up the stairs and the perp got him from behind.  Baseball bat didn’t do him any good…” Kono concluded as she eyed the body bag Max was currently attending.  A Louisville Slugger sat a few feet away, where it had rolled in the attack.  There was not a defensive mark on it.  Steve nodded at her assessment.  Danny let out a sigh.

“The wife followed after a while, checking on _him_ … only to have the same thing happen,” he said sadly, eyeing the other body bag.

“Our guy knew there were kids here.  He went all the way upstairs to find them,” Steve noted, eyeing the ceiling.  Danny ran a hand over his face, knowing how that story ended.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

Kono frowned.  “So what are the connections between these families besides the neighborhood?  It’s obviously not robbery-oriented.  Nothing so far has seemed to be missing – no safe cracking, no jewelry missing, cars all in their garages, electronics all in place.  And why miss the first family by vacation, but kill the second family as they were home?”

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out.  And we have to figure out Marcus Reyes’ place in all of this.  He shot a perp at the last scene, and then _he_ gets taken out last night.  Something is off here.  It doesn’t just seem like a good, old-fashioned hit,” Danny observed.

“We have to approach these two cases as if they’re not connected,” Chin told them as he approached with Lori.  The blonde looked over at him with a questioning frown.

“But we know they are,” she told him.  Chin shook his head.

“We can’t assume that, otherwise we’re putting ourselves at a disadvantage.  That sort of bias leaves out other possibilities and we lose time in the end.  We have to figure out _where_ they connect before we can say they are connected, so that means we start fresh with each case.  The only common thread here is Marcus Reyes.  For all we know Reyes made an ex-girlfriend angry, or made an enemy of a bookie to end up dead.  We just don’t know.  We’ll need to re-canvass Reyes’ apartment and look at it as if he hadn’t been the officer on scene at the last break-in,” he said.  Steve nodded in agreement as he looked among the team.

“If we retrace what happened in each of these homicides, it should eventually intersect if they’re truly connected.  We have to start there, otherwise we’ve got nothing substantial.”

“And if Fryer is right and this is a trap?” Lori asked the large elephant of a question that seemed to follow them.  Chin let out a breath.

“Then we should figure out who it’s meant for along the way,” he said.  It didn’t make anyone feel comfortable, not by a long shot.

“Alright,” Steve broke the small silence.  “Kono, Lori… get over to Reyes’ place.  Chin and I will continue here.  Danny, I need you to get with Fryer and go over the last scene again… document any similarities, and especially document the differences.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Danny asked, crossing his arms defiantly.  “With Fryer?”

Steve rolled his eyes.  “You’re the one out of the three of us…” indicating the three men.  “… that would be the less likely to punch the hell out of the man.  And he’s a part of this as much as we are.”  Danny looked to think about that for a second, and then nodded.

“Alright, I concede that point.  But why can’t Kono or Lori deal with him?” he asked.

“Because Kono was never at the Reyes scene and she’s going to have fresh eyes.  Lori was the first of us there last night, so it makes sense that she’s there to walk Kono through her observations,” Steve told him.  Danny huffed as he had to concede that point.  Steve just smirked at him.

“Sucks when I use logic against you, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“Not any more than it does when you _don’t_ use logic against me,” Danny grumbled as he began to walk away.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Elsewhere_

“Shelburne…”

A man frowned as he stared at the person in front of him.  “Excuse me?”

“You can call me Shelburne.”  It was very obviously _not_ the person’s name.  But that person smiled at the man regardless.  “For the short amount of time you have left to live, you can just call me Shelburne.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Marcus Reyes’ Apartment_

Lori and Kono had never really found a common ground to connect on, not even the fact that they were both women on a team full of over-protective Neanderthals.  Kono connected with Chin because… well, she’d known him since she took her first breath in the world.  She connected with Steve because they were really so similar.  She connected with Danny because they had the same sense of humor.  But with Lori… it was a box full of crickets.  An unbreachable wall of uncomfortable.  So, the car ride to Reyes’ place had been predictably quiet, not to mention extremely awkward.  It was rare the women were paired together.

Kono could feel Lori looking at her every once in a while, when she could afford to glance away from the road.  It was starting to become grating.

“If there’s something you want to say, say it,” she said finally, keeping her gaze locked on the road in front of her.  Lore cleared her throat uncomfortably.

“Sorry…” she said.  Kono frowned.  It sounded like a half-assed apology and not just a cover statement for staring.

“About?”

“I know my presence has made it awkward for you since you came back to Five-0,” Lori told her.  Kono shrugged.

“It is what it is.  So, whatever,” she told the other woman before remembering some semblance of manners.  Her mother would be appalled at her lack of graciousness for the sort-of apology.  “ _Mahalo_.”  Lori took the next turn and was silent as she concentrated on where she was and where she needed to be.  Satisfied that she was going to the right place, she spared another glance at Kono.

“It doesn’t take a mind reader or a genius to see that you’ve been uncomfortable on the team since the undercover operation,” she commented.  Kono’s jaw tensed at the mention, because in reality… yeah, it still bothered her a bit.  Lori let out a breath as she refocused on the road.  “And I’m pretty sure I’m part of the reason.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kono muttered.  Lori chuckled.

“That’s the thing, Kono.  I’m not.  I know exactly my part…” she said.  Kono’s gaze snapped over to her.  It was an interesting statement to make.

“Your part?” she asked, eyes narrowing.  Lori shook her head.

“I just meant that I know I was here to fill the gap.  At least until you came back.  The Governor has kept me here as oversight until he feels comfortable letting the team loose again,” she explained, somewhat hurriedly.  Silence fell as Kono evaluated that for the truth and Lori pulled the car up to the curb in front of Marcus Reyes’ apartment.

“I’m not quite sure that’s what you meant, Lori,” Kono said after the other woman turned off the car.  She didn’t wait for the blonde’s response before she pushed open the door and got out of the vehicle.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Somewhere_

The man ran.  He ran and ran and ran.  His lungs burned horribly and he could feel his legs start to seize up slightly.  But he could not stop.  It was only a matter of time really.  He was a dead man running.  He knew that.  It still didn’t stop that little spark of hope that maybe – _maybe_ – he could actually make it just far enough…

The shot rang out.  He gasped as the speeding bullet slammed into him.  It wasn’t just his legs that felt the need to seize.  The unfortunate man didn’t even have a moment to let out another breath as his body hit the cement with a sickening thud.  Thankfully, there was no one around to hear it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Halawa Correctional Facility  
O’ahu_

Frank Delano stood outside the gates as a brand new man.  Or rather, a man with a brand new outlook on life as a free man.  He rubbed his wrists, trying to get the feel of the cold, hard metal of steel shackles out of his skin.  Yes… he had a brand new outlook and a brand new purpose.

Frank straightened as the black town car pulled up to the curb.  The door opened, but no one got out.  Looking around the area, he smirked before he looked up to the guard shack and gave the man there a sarcastic salute.  With no hesitation he ducked into the awaiting vehicle and closed the door behind him.

He shifted and got comfortable as he straightened the brand new polyester shirt they’d given him to replace the one full of bullet holes he’d been arrested in that fateful day at the Bank of Oahu.

An envelope was handed to him from his companion.  Frank grinned as he upended it and a cell phone, new ID’s, and a passport slipped out.  He opened the passport and studied it for a moment.

“As we discussed, and I’m sure you are fully aware… Frank Delano will be serving a life sentence at Halawa Correctional Facility for murder,” the person seated across from him said.  Frank’s grin just widened.

No, he’d been mistaken earlier… This particular Frank Delano was _definitely_ a brand new man.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**To be continued…**


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Six

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Marcus Reyes' Apartment_

Kono sifted through the rubble that the crime scene team had left behind for the cleanup crew, every once in a while pausing to look at the crime scene photos to get an idea of how it had been found.

"This is ridiculous," she grumbled as she slapped the photos back into their folder. "I can't make heads or tails of what they've left us."Lori looked up from where she was crouched re-arranging the pile of clothes that had been discarded as 'no evidence'.

"When I was with Homeland Security, I had to profile a suspect using his vast collection of matchbooks… 1,794 of them, to be exact. I had to log each one AND try to classify his geographic preference off of them," she said with a grimace. Kono looked over at the blonde.

"That sounds… tedious," she allowed. Lori looked up at her with a small smile.

"To say the least. The never ending glamour of law enforcement," she agreed. Kono let out a breath.

"We've been here for nearly an hour and we've got nothing new that isn't already being analyzed," she said as she laid the folder down on the dresser. Her phone chirped at her and as she looked at it, Charlie Fong's name appeared on the screen. Speaking of analyzing…

"Hey Charlie," Kono greeted after connecting the call.

"Hey Kono," he greeted back. "Listen, I think I may have something for you…"

Kono caught Lori's eye and the other woman came over to stand by her. Kono quickly put her phone on speaker.

"Okay, I've got Lori here too," she told him.

"There was a body found a couple of hours ago at one of the west harbor piers. Single gunshot wound to the head," Charlie said. Kono frowned.

"We didn't hear about this because?" she asked. Charlie chuckled.

"You know better than I do that you've got a fairly active case," he reminded her. Kono smiled.

"Yeah, you've got a point… anyway, what'd you find that you're calling us then?" she asked.

"The bullet pulled out of the victim… matched the ballistics of the bullets pulled out of Reyes and his girlfriend," he said. Kono's eyes widened as she looked to Lori, who looked just as shocked as she did.

"Our guy's been busy," Lori commented. "What was the time of death?" Kono asked. She heard Charlie shuffle through some papers. "Max's preliminary call says around 7:30 this morning," he told her. "He's still finishing the autopsy."

"Jeez," Kono said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Lori frowned.

"How did they find the body so quickly? Did a docks worker call it in? Witnesses?" she asked. Again, Charlie shuffled through paperwork.

"No witnesses. It was at pier 54, the one they're in the middle of building yet. HPD canvasses the area regularly since the workers went on strike last week. A unit pulled up roughly 20 minutes later and found the body," Charlie read to them.

"Well that was lucky," Kono commented. Lori gave her a wry nod of agreement.

"Especially with the Coast Guard located right down the street," she added.

"Sounds like our guy is cleaning house, and doing it as quietly as he can get away with," Kono said. Lori nodded.

"Ballistics all they got off the guy?" the blonde asked. "Not quite. Max had sent me a picture of an odd tattoo the guy had and wanted me to try to trace it down. Wanted to be sure you had a copy of it too. Officially, the paperwork on this case hasn't been turned over to Five-0 yet, but it will be once I get the paperwork complete on the ballistics. So I'm eliminating the middle man in the meantime," Charlie joked.

"Don't tell homicide that," Lori said back. Kono gave a pinched smile.

"Sadly, 'eliminating the middle man' may turn out to be the motive of both of these cases," she said back.

"Well, the picture is on its way. I'm still working on the origins and its meaning, but in case you need that as any identifier," Charlie told them.

"Thanks, Fong," Lori signed off.

"You're welcome," he said back before hanging up. Kono frowned as she turned to look around the room again.

"So we've got another 'hit'. A police officer, his girlfriend, and now a John Doe on the docks. This doesn't have a good feeling attached to it. It's not going to be cut and dry," she said, glancing at Lori.

"No, I don't think it will be either. And we still have an unconnected John Doe from the other case too," she reminded her. Kono's phone pinged as a message arrived. She opened it to find a black inked mark magnified in the photo.

"Shit…" Lori muttered before she ran over to where they'd set the crime scene photos. She quickly paged through a stack of them and then straightened when she found what she was looking for. Flipping the picture towards Kono she let out a breath. "Now it's not just a bullet that connects these two cases."

There, on the left side of the left wrist sat the very same tattoo Kono was staring at on her phone. If it had been anything else, Kono might have been amused at the sudden coincidence.

"So Reyes had the same tattoo…" she let out a breath. Lori shook her head.

"This tattoo is on the girlfriend," she corrected. Kono took a step forward to look closer at the picture. Lori was right; the wrist was definitely a feminine one. And the name on the evidence tag said the same thing. Kono frowned. There was something very familiar about the black ink. Something that was sitting at the edge of her brain, a memory, and she tried grabbing for it:

_Two weeks earlier…_

_This was only the second time they'd gone out since their first 'accidental' meeting. As much as she was on edge doing what she was doing – especially so soon again after Fryer's job – she actually found she was enjoying Adam Noshimuri's company. They didn't necessarily have a LOT in common, but they had enough to have conversations and enough differences to make those conversations interesting._

_So, when Adam had asked for her number, she'd given it to him with barely a second thought. And when he'd called asking her to a proper date… who was she to say no?_

_"Nobu? Really?" Kono asked with a teasing grin as Adam pulled out her chair. He grinned charmingly back._

_"All the girls love a high profile restaurant," he said with a wink._

_"I… am not most girls," Kono remarked. Adam gave her a softer smile as he quickly sat down across from her._

_"I am very aware of that," he said. "And that's why, in the next 30 minutes or so, the entire restaurant will clear out and we'll have the place to ourselves."  Kono's eyes widened as she looked around at the bustling restaurant. It was a place to see and be seen. Very well known to host the elite and the famous. And apparently well connected to Adam Noshimuri. Which should have been no real surprise to her. Yet it was._

_It had been a great dinner. Laughter, comfort, good drinks and great food… It was a good official first date after the disaster that could be considered their first unofficial date. Kono was relaxed and couldn't wait to see what Adam had in store for them next. He'd said dinner and a surprise…_

_"Message for you, Mr. Noshimuri," a man interrupted, stepping up to the table. He held out his hand to give the small white envelope to Adam. A curious tattoo peeked out from under his shirt sleeve and it caught Kono's attention briefly before being distracted by Adam's frown._

_"Anything wrong?" she asked. Adam pushed the piece of paper back into the envelope and looked up to her with a smile._

_"Nope, just a quick update on some business I had been waiting on. Nothing important," he said as he stood, laying the piece of paper on the table and straightening his suit jacket. "We have plans that we can't be late for…" Kono grinned as she, too, stood and took his outstretched hand – completely missing the look between Adam and the other man._

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Late afternoon…_

The sound of the waves hitting the shore was calming. And it was very much needed. He'd taken a couple hours off of the case – not because Danny had insisted on it, though – to actually do something that didn't require thinking about the case. Or cases, as they'd promised themselves to call them…

Steve had quickly called Catherine to pay back the rain check they'd taken when the Reyes call had come in the other night. They sat out on the lanai after a light lunch, beer and wine in their respective hands… Over the years there had been a lot of one or both of them being called away from the moments they were able to steal away, so it hadn't exactly been a surprise.

"You seem distracted, Commander," Catherine's voice called him back from his thoughts. Steve smiled at her as he picked up his beer.

"It's been a tough few days," he granted. One of Catherine's eyebrows rose.

"Don't you mean weeks?" she prodded. "Going off grid has a way of doing that."

It was a struggle for Steve to keep the frown off of his face. There seemed to be some gentle censure in her statement. Instead he just shrugged.

"Had to be done," he said. Catherine let out a breath as she raised her glass of wine.

"Did it?" She asked the question before taking a small sip. Steve just looked at her. Danny would be muttering about aneurysm face at that precise moment.

"Cath, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean for it to happen during your furlough. If I'd known beforehand that you were going to be on the island…"

"You wouldn't have gone?" she asked, her eyes wide in surprise. When he didn't answer right away, she huffed at sat back against the chair. "Right…"

"I can't answer one way or the other what would have happened, Cath, it's over already. But if I'd known before hand, I would have thought about it, okay?" he gave her.

"It was going to be a surprise…" Her voice was quiet, her eyes watching closely as she swirled the deep red liquid in the glass.

"We've never done surprises well, Cath. With our schedules it's pretty much impossible. Even with plans we don't do well," he told her. She looked up at him.

"I know. I'd just hoped…" she sighed. Steve let out a short, amazed laugh. When she glared at him, he held up his hands in apology.

"Sorry. It's just that you'd hoped that what we'd had the past couple years had suddenly changed?" He winced as he realized how that sounded. Luckily, Catherine had known him long enough to realize what he meant. She leaned her elbows on the table in front of her, fingers nervously rubbing over the stem of the glass.

"What if I'm saying that I want to try?" she asked, peeking a look up at him to gauge his reaction.

Steve had been surprised when he'd heard his father's voice on the phone while sitting in a Humvee and interrogating the younger Hesse all those months ago. He'd been surprised to be handed immunity and a task force as he'd stepped foot back onto the island. He'd been surprised to see Kono across the booking room when life had gone to hell for a while there. He'd been surprised at the depth of Fryer's undercover on Delano. He'd been surprised when Joe White had absconded with Hiro Noshimuri…

And he was definitely surprised now.

"You want to try… at a relationship," he clarified. He took another drink of his beer. Catherine knew he was still mulling that over in his head. As much as she'd hoped for an instant positive response to her question, she couldn't just forget what she knew of Steve McGarrett.

"Just think it over?" she asked, sitting back. "For me?" Steve opened his mouth, but realized he couldn't answer that. It wasn't that he was allergic to relationships, not by a long shot. But, he'd just never really given thought to something serious between him and Catherine. He wasn't sure why. He'd always enjoyed his time with her, they got along great, and hell… she was NAVY. As Danny would tell him, she was a gift-wrapped, special edition GI Jane with a side of ammo made just for him. But then again, Danny always called the females that could hit harder than he could that. The Jersey boy wasn't picky in his labeling.

"Cath," Steve started, but she held up her hand. To give her credit, there was actually amusement in her eyes.

"Stop. I know you, Steve. You don't have an answer. So don't even try. I'm sorry for taking you by surprise like that, but you do need to know what I'm thinking. I need to be honest with you. And I'm going to need you to be honest with me. So… think about it," she said. Steve nodded. And when Cath reached across the small table, she squeezed his hand in gratitude. He squeezed back.

And then his phone rang…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Frank Delano liked what he did. It was safe to say that he was good at what he did. He excelled at being bad. Of course, he'd had that little hiccup with the Five-0, but he'd settle that score. It was also something he did very well.

He lounged back in the booth he was sitting in and smirked at all the pretty girls that walked by him – all scantily clad and full of sultry winks. With all the distractions, it was understandable that he didn't notice the presence next to him for longer than he would have liked. When the cell phone slid in front of him, it took him by surprise.

"Jesus," he muttered as he turned to his companion. "Can't use the front door like a normal person?" The person next to him looked less than amused.

"I cannot be seen associating with you. Pick up the phone."

Frank frowned and gave the other person a once over.  "This better be good…" The other person just smiled with deceptive congeniality. Frank picked up the phone.

"So, how many middle men do you have exactly?" he asked, not bothering to think it could be anyone else.

"More than you can imagine, Mr. Delano. And it would be in your best interest to remember that," the voice on the other end said. Frank rolled his eyes.

"I think you forget that I own this island, man," he said with a chuckle. The man next to him lifted an eyebrow. Frank just made a face at him.

"Funny, Mr. Delano. I didn't realize your personal finances had been freed up from the Honolulu Police Department to allow such a statement. According to… well… everything, you're still in prison. And you've been released basically on my say so. So, I'll have to ask: who exactly owns the island? _Man_?" the voice mocked.

Frank grit his teeth and didn't say anything. The other person continued as if they didn't know what Frank was thinking.

"Since we're in agreement then, I don't think I have to remind you that you have a job to do. You have several, in fact. Primary being that you have some product to take care of for me. Let's just say that the last couple of mishaps have set me back and I'm hoping that your skillset will be able to take care of that for me. It would be nice if you could prove that you've been marginally worth the trouble." The call was disconnected. Frank looked at the phone before his companion's hand snuck up and slipped it out of his grip.

"Pleasure, Mr. Delano. As always." Frank found himself alone, and it wasn't long before he was distracted again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Five-0 Headquarters_

"What have we got?" Steve asked as he walked into the building. Kono's head snapped up from what she was reading as she watched him walk in. She nodded towards Chin, who started pulling things up on the multiple screens with Danny watching close by.

"Background information so far," Chin answered.

"Leilani Komoa," Kono said as the picture of Reyes' girlfriend came up on the screen. "Local girl, 27 years old. University of Hawaii graduate. Not exactly a stellar student, though. Junior agent at Hau'oli Travels, worked there for 3 years." Chin pulled up the website.

"Okay…" Steve prompted as his eyes ran over the information.

"What's strange about all of this," Lori started to explain. "Is that there was a body called in this morning. Ballistics match the bullets used to kill Reyes and Komoa. Fong also found a tattoo on the new vic and passed along the information to us." Lori touched the SmartTable and pulled up the image of the tattoo. It was done simply with black ink and was located in the somewhat unique position of the left side of the left wrist. Steve stared at the image of two intersecting infinity symbols with interest.

"That seems a bit specific," he said. Kono pulled up the second image of the tattoo with a small smile.

"Not everyone gets hearts and Chinese symbols apparently. The tattoo on the docks victim matched the tattoo on Komoa," she told him. Steve frowned.

"The girlfriend?" Kono nodded, looking over at Danny to continue.

"Obviously, we thought the connection was Reyes. Which may still be the case. But we obviously dug a little deeper into Komoa's history. She had a prior for felony breaking and entering. It was pled down and she only had to serve three months plus probation and community service. After that, she took the job with the travel agency. There's every indication that she was trying to turn her life around," Danny revealed. Steve let out a breath.

"People lie, though. Hide things," he said. Danny rolled his eyes.

"Says the resident cynic," he grumbled. Steve ignored it as he studied the website for the travel agency, there was something that was trying to get his attention. The screen scrolled down a bit and brought a statement front and center.

"I think you're looking for this," Kono mentioned with a grin. " _Full service travel agency_ … Seems a bit odd, doesn't it?"

Steve nodded. "What's that mean exactly?" Kono clicked a link and it brought up another page.

"It's definitely not standard practice among travel agencies due to the liability they could incur. Hau'oli Travels is the only agency on the island that only schedules appointments in clients homes. They say it's because it's more 'customer friendly'. They also provide pet sitting, house sitting, errand running, and are willing to take requests from clients while they are away enjoying their vacations. All for a moderate flat fee," she said. Chin let out a little whistle.

"For a middle class income, that's actually quite a steal," he commented. Danny nodded.

"Also a pretty tempting draw for the higher income bracket if they don't want to have to pay an hourly rate to their own housekeeping staff or personal assistants," he noted as he looked around at the group.

"The B&E on the first family was done while they were on vacation…" Lori commented. No one said anything for a long moment. Steve shifted as he leaned onto the table.

"Alright. I know we're all thinking it. But we can't make the leap that there's a connection between Komoa and the B&E's just yet," he said. "We need proof, not circumstantial information."

"It's not a huge leap though, babe," Danny played devil's advocate. "Komoa's boyfriend was first on scene at the second B&E. He was the only one left alive…" Steve shook his head. As much as he'd love to tie all this together in one neat, little bow, his instincts told him this one just wasn't going to be that easy.

"Find me a connection between Komoa and those specific homes. Until then, we're still running this separately," he said. "Chin and Lori, go check out the travel agency. Interview the employees; get a feel for the place. Danny, you and I will go back over the evidence from both B&E's. Maybe we can find your connection there. Kono, I want all the information from the body found this morning. Get Max's autopsy results and any other findings. Also check on our first John Doe. Check to see if he had the tattoo." Everyone nodded and started to go their separate ways. Just as Kono turned to go, Steve reached out and touched her arm.

"Kono?" he asked quietly as to not draw attention to their conversation. She turned to look at him and he nodded toward his office. "A word?"

She hesitated for a split second but nodded tightly, leading the way. Steve sighed. Now or never for the conversation he didn't really want to have. It was going to have to be now. He knew his temper, and he knew her stubbornness. Steve just hoped it remained professional… and there were no weapons involved.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

To be continued…


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Seven

_~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Steve's Office_

Kono took a moment before turning to face the judge, jury, and quite possibly executioner after shutting the door behind her. She fully expected the patented McGarrett glare when she finally looked at him, but was taken off guard when she found him slumped in his chair, fiddling with his fingers.

"Boss?" she asked carefully. He let out a breath as he leaned forward on the desk and looked up at her.

"Noshimuri," he said simply. Kono swallowed hard before she nodded once.

"I owe you an explanation," she said, sinking down into the chair and rubbing her knees uncomfortably. She watched him pinch the bridge of his nose.

"In one way, yes you do, Kono. Seeing as how we left things and all. But in another, you really don't," Steve said, looking at her again. Kono nodded again. She didn't want to be lying to her boss again, or in any case, omitting anything.

"What do you want to know?" She'd leave it to him to ask the questions that she would answer.

"I saw pictures. Chin had a guy on you, he followed you and Noshimuri," he said. Kono nodded.

"I gathered you knew about… Adam and I," she told him. "And I didn't lie to you about what I told you before. Adam doesn't know where Joe White or his father is. And he doesn't talk to me about business, at all. Even if I ask in a general sense." Silence fell as Steve watched her face for any sign to not trust that answer. He nodded, knowing more than anything that he did trust her, even with the situation being what it was.

"If I asked, would you be able to walk away?" he asked carefully, watching closely for any tell. She was silent, and he could sense the unease in her thoughts. He slumped back in his chair again with a sigh. "On a professional level, Kono, I am asking you to walk away. I shouldn't have asked this of you in the first place. I normally wouldn't ask on a personal level, that's not how I operate. But… Adam Noshimuri is the de facto head of the Yakuza until his father's whereabouts are secured. And as an officer of the Honolulu Police Department and a member of the Five-0 task force…"

"I know," she interrupted, a hand up to stop him from continuing. "Believe me, Steve, I know. If you think I haven't talked this over in my own head a million times after I made first contact with him…"

Steve stood up from behind his desk and moved around to the front. He didn't want to be boss and employee at the moment, although a small voice in his head chided him that this had already far surpassed boss and employee by any standard of conduct. It probably had the day he'd hired her, if he were truly honest. Steve ignored all of that for the moment. He needed this conversation to be frank and unofficial so he knew ahead of time what trouble this could all bring. Rather than lean against his desk, he sat in the chair next to Kono's.

"How did you make first contact?" he asked, looking down at his hands again. Kono gave a humorless chuckle.

"Completely by accident, actually," she said, thinking back. "Malia had called and we were going to meet up. We'd decided to meet at the new place Kuhio Ave out in Waikiki."

_It hadn't been a particularly noteworthy day. Just a rare day off and Malia had wanted to grab a coffee before her shift at the hospital. Still making up for that lost time, as the other woman had joked. Kono looked down at her phone in frustrated bemusement as she hung up. Her new cousin-in-law was late. It wasn't like Malia, who was usually so prompt and put together. Chin's laid back attitude was definitely rubbing off. Kono chuckled to herself as she picked up her coffee and turned to go find a table in the crowded restaurant. Incidentally, a man in an expensive suit was reaching just beyond her for a napkin for his own drink. The result of both of these actions, of course, was a brilliant spatter pattern of coffee imprinted on the poshly draped arm of said man - and two very distinct frowns._

"Let's just say," Kono said with a quick embarrassed cough. "Kind words were not exchanged at that moment. I had just realized who he was when Malia walked in the door. I'd offered to buy him a new drink when he'd recognized me… "

"How?" Steve asked with a concerned frown. Kono tilted her head to give him a look. He felt like he should know the answer.

"From the news reports.  _Fryer,_ " she reminded him with a small smile. It was still a bitter taste in her mouth, but she could forgive him for the momentary lapse. "Forget who Adam is for a moment, his connections. That news report was run for weeks with my picture all over the place. And the resulting exoneration, of course, made the news as well. The whole island knew who I was for a while there."

"Yeah." That didn't make him feel any better.

"I didn't let you finish before," she said, eyes locking on his. "Are you personally asking me to walk away?" The question hung heavy in the air as they continued to look at each other. Steve's blue gaze lowered, knowing that there was only one answer to her question that he could live with.

"No."

Kono sucked in a silent breath as something clutched in her chest. It was hard to tell at the moment what the reaction was. She nodded tightly, but he didn't see it.

"I can't ask that of you, Kono."

Silence fell between the two, each trying to read the other without catching the others gaze. For a brief moment there was something tangible there, something neither one really understood but realized it had been there for quite a while. Still, all they could do was sit there uncomfortably.

"I have a medical examiner to go see," she said quietly, standing. Steve nodded quickly as he stood too, the job clicking back into focus.

"I'll let you get to that." She smiled gratefully at the return to professionalism. It was a relief to be out of that conversation without war wounds. And from the look on Steve's face, he felt the exact same way.

"Call you if I get anything," she said as she opened the door and walked out. She said a quick 'see ya' to Danny as he approached Steve's office. That heavy feeling was still in her chest…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Everything okay?" Danny asked, eyeing Steve as he watched Kono prepare to go see Max. When Steve looked back at Danny, there was a troubled expression on his face for a split second before he masked it.

"Fine. Why wouldn't it be?" the man answered before shrugging casually. Too casually. Danny looked quickly over to Kono as she exited and then back to his partner.

"I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here, but I think this may be the time to make you King of Passive Aggressive Conversations. Which is odd, by the way, considering your interrogation tactics," Danny mused.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Danno," Steve told him. Danny raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, but I think I do. In this, I definitely think I do. I'm not just a pretty face around this place… I have certain skills," he said. Steve rolled his eyes as he leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms.

"These so-mentioned skills, have they acquired anything new on the case then?" Steve asked. Danny pointed a finger at the man with a knowing look.

"I'm right. I know I'm right because you just changed the subject. But as to your question, I'm actually waiting on  _your_  ass, Your Highness since we're going to confab over the B&E evidence,"

"Right." Steve nodded once and started out of the office, Danny quickly behind him.

"Holy crap, it's worse than I thought," the blond muttered.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Steve responded, not turning to look at his friend.

"Yes you do. But that's not the point. Friendly advice?"

"Nope."

"Fine, don't you ever say I didn't try. And I will not be hosting beer-guzzling pity parties. My foot is down on that…"

"So noted."

"You're a jackass." Steve just smirked as he held the door open for his friend.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Unspecified Location_

"It's too bad that McGarrett killed Nick Taylor. We could have used his particular skillset right now. The assassination attempt on Pak was a waste of time and resources, not to mention a risk of further exposure," the man said. The other man just hummed a general acknowledgement as he looked over the set of pictures in front of him.

"As you well know, the Pak situation was a necessity, a non-negotiable. That particular conversation ends there, if you're smart. Now, we now have too many loose ends tied together in our current business dealings. We need to start cutting those strings and eliminating them altogether," he said, his eyes staying longer on the picture of Officer Kalakaua caught in a candid shot with Noshimuri, the younger. He pushed the picture in front of his companion.

"This situation could easily get out of our control. We need to neutralize it. I'm tired of trying to keep my eyes on it when I have bigger things to be concerned about." His voice was bored as he gave the order, but there was a bit of apprehension in his eyes as he realized how close he would be cutting things. It still needed to be done though. There was no room for doubt, not with Five-0 circling in the waters.

"It will be done," his companion said, picking up the picture. "I will make sure our associate knows."

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Noshimuri Compound_

"Did you get them?"

"I couldn't. The police were there. We're going to have to wait until dark. Then I can get at them again."

"Adam, if we don't get everything out of there, they  _will_ be found. And we'll be dead men. You know as well as I do that we can't afford mistakes right now… There have been too many already."

"I know." Adam sighed as he ran a hand over his face. His held the cell phone in a white-knuckled grip. "Can you tell me where you are?"

"No. I cannot. I don't have much time. But alert me when everything is moved."

"I will."

The phone went dead.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Elsewhere_

He smiled as the message came in. It was time to settle the score… Patrick Flynn, nee Frank Delano, dialed a number on his cell phone to get things going. He was going to enjoy this.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued..._


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Eight

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_HPD Morgue_

"Hey Max," Kono greeted the man with a smile. The medical examiner looked up from where he was finishing off a stitch on his current 'patient', a light lamp on his forehead to make his work a bit easier.

"Officer Kalakaua, it is good to see you," he said before turning back to do a couple more quick stitches. "As you can see, I am just putting the final touches on this particular case."

"Anything new you can tell me?" she asked, leaning against the empty autopsy table next to him.

"As Fong no doubt mentioned to you, it was found from the ballistics off the bullet that it came from a high-performance, long range rifle, most likely a SIG-Sauer make. This would be consistent with the bullets that had come earlier from Reyes and Komoa. As each of these killings occurred from a distance between 600 to 900 meters, I would concur that the sniper rifle would be your murder weapon," he rattled off.

"A skilled sniper killing two victims in the safety of their own home and then another who was running through the docks. At first glance, this has organization written all over it," she muttered to herself.  _But whose organization?_  That was the question. Max looked up at her.

"I would have to agree, Officer Kalakaua. When I tried to run this man's prints through all the known databases, it was curious that there had been no connections. I can say the same with facial recognition. It would seem that our victim does not exist," he informed her as he straightened, shutting off the head lamp and slipping it off. Kono frowned.

"So that is two John Does now, with no information on them whatsoever? This is getting messier and messier," she said. Max made a small hum of agreement, stripping off his gloves.

"But," he started. "What was even more curious was that when I did run his prints, the system made a match to an unidentified print from a breaking and entering case from a few years ago." Kono crossed her arms over her chest as she thought through that for a long moment.

"What was the address of that B&E, Max?" she asked. He went over to one of the work stations and pulled up the files he had been looking through earlier.

"It was at 590 Prospect Street," he read off. Kono let out a humorless chuckle as it made sense.

"Not far off the mark," she said, thinking over the Governor's neighborhood in her head. She stood up straight. "I think you just might have made the connection between our John Doe here and our B&E cases. And with the tattoo in the mix, we now may have the connection we need for the Reyes and Komoa killings."

"It would seem highly likely," Max confirmed.

"Can you send me all the information from that unsolved B&E?" she asked. The other man nodded.

"Absolutely. I will do it now," Max said as he paged through the reports and made sure they were where they needed to be.

"Well, that gives us another place to start looking for something concrete," she told him with a smile. "Thanks."

"You are welcome," he said to her back as she started out. As she opened the door, though, Kono stopped. Turning on her heel, she went back to the medical examiner.

"Max? Do you still have that John Doe from the B&E?" she asked, a thought teasing her brain and her gut telling her to pay attention. Max looked thoughtful for a second.

"Yes, I do believe so. Being listed as a John Doe means the body is considered a responsibility of the state at this point. No family has identified him or claimed the body," he confirmed.

"Could I get a quick look at him again, in person?" she said.

"Of course," he said as he stood and walked over to the large wall of metal coolers. Max picked one and quickly opened the door, sliding out the bed.

Kono looked at his face closer and it did seem familiar. She hadn't been able to pay much attention to it as they'd found him. And the lack of identification had merely stumped her enough to really pay more thought to it as a John Doe than anything else. As she kept looking, the memory of her first official dinner out with Adam became clearer and clearer. She straightened and let out a breath she been holding. This man… this man was the person who had interrupted them with a message. She reached down and tugged the sheet covering him down to his waist and gently turned his left arm toward her. And this… this was the tattoo on his wrist she'd seen that night.

She closed her eyes as she realized the implication of this particular lead. Kono hesitated as she pulled out her phone, and it took a few seconds of her finger hovering over the speed dial, but she did press the number eventually.

"Steve… when you get this, we're going to need to talk." If her voice sounded heavier than it normally did, it was because of the lump of unease that had suddenly formed.

She tucked her phone into her back pocket, mumbled a quick thanks to a frowning Max, and made her way out to her car. She suddenly felt like a shave ice…

__~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_ _

_Five-0 HQ_

Steve threw one of the evidence bags across the table. It had only been an hour, but it was still enough.

"I've stared at this stuff too much. My damn eyes are crossing," he cursed.

"Yeah, well, I'd insert some joke in there about how it would improve your look, but I'm too tired to dazzle with my stunning wit," Danny grumbled. Steve chuckled.

"Stunning wit? That's debatable. I'll make coffee," he said, standing. Danny just closed his eyes, resting his cheek on his hand.

"If I'd known it would have been that easy, I'd have asked you to go get food, too," he said. Steve gave a disbelieving snort.

"Not in this lifetime," he said. Danny shrugged.

"Worth the shot," he said as Steve made his way to the coffeemaker. "Make sure you put a little water in it this time, babe. We don't all need the high octane fuel  _you_  call coffee to sustain us."

"Are you just going to bitch all afternoon?" Steve asked, already internally groaning at the prospect.

"No, but I'm doing what I can to avoid looking into that evidence box again," he said. When Steve finally sat down, the other man looked up.

"Why'd you give us the boring job today?" he asked.

"Bonding?" Steve answered with his own sarcastic question. He gave Danny a mock concerned look. "Tell me, how have you been? How's life? Are you getting enough sleep?" Danny narrowed his eyes at the overly saccharine questions and threw a pen at his partner.

"Why ya gotta be like that, huh? Just because you're not blowing things up or shooting people doesn't mean you have to be a complete jackass to compensate." Steve shrugged with a straight face.

"I'm just trying to be a good partner, Danno." Danny just gave him a quick, narrow-eyed look that conveyed just how convinced he was of that. The two men then succumbed to staring at the evidence pile that was in front of them. They'd gone through about half of it and found nothing that could offer any more information or theories. They were pretty much at a standstill until Chin and Lori returned or Kono brought back some information.

"So, I'm betting that you know Fryer is trying to recruit Kono," Danny tossed out there into the silence, leaning back in his chair. Steve's grip on the pen he'd been twirling absentmindedly tightened before he realized it wasn't a good substitute for Fryer's neck.

"Yeah," he let out on a huff.

"You told her not to do it, right?" Danny asked, putting his hands behind his head. Steve looked over at him with a confused look.

"Why the hell would I do that?" he asked.

"Well, oh Great and Wonderful Commander of Five-0, you're the boss. She should listen to you," his partner replied. Steve sat back in his chair and looked at the blond man incredulously.

"You really do need a coffee. You  _actually_  think that would work, Danny?  _Honestly_?" he asked. Then he shook his head. "It's no wonder you're divorced…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Danny said, sitting up straight again. "That's a bit of a low blow, mister. Not necessary." Steve rolled his eyes.

"Then you need to describe to me, Danno, a moment when you've told a woman – well,  _any_ one for that matter – what they can't do and it actually worked, especially when it is totally their prerogative  _to_  do something. I'm going to need specifics on this one," he requested. Danny looked to think that through for a moment. And if his partnership with Steve McGarrett has taught him anything, it was that perhaps that the other man had a point.

"You're right. I hate that you're right, and I'm not sure how it happened, but you're right," he conceded, sitting back again. The fell into silence for a moment as Steve fiddled with the pen.

"She told you about it?" he finally asked. Danny shrugged.

"She mentioned it. Didn't get into details, seemed a bit cavalier about it," he said. Steve nodded, but didn't say anything.

"She wouldn't give up Five-0, Steve," the blond said, trying his best to believe it himself. "She risked too much to just walk away now."'

"I'm fully aware of what she risked," Steve growled unexpectedly, the reminder of all of that suddenly spiking his anger. Danny held up his hands in surrender.

"Sorry, sorry. I know you do," he sighed. Danny looked like he wanted to say more, but mercifully stayed silent as Steve willed those particular memories away. Thankfully, the buzzing of his phone was enough of a distraction to successfully do so. With a sigh, he connected the call.

"McGarrett," he greeted.

"We might have a lead on our John Doe from the docks," Fryer's voice greeted. "We got a missing persons report in here at HPD for a Jonathan Nevins. When we do a search on Nevins, we get a hit, but the real Jonathan Nevins has been dead for 7 years. For someone to report him 5 days missing seems more than a bit suspicious. This person described the John Doe down to the tattoo on his arm."

Steve stood up and motioned for Danny to pack it up. "Five days missing? That's interesting considering he was only killed in the last day or so. Do you have a name and address for the person who reported him missing?"

"Sending it to you now."

"Thanks." He gritted his teeth as he said it, as it wasn't something he  _liked_  saying to Fryer.

"McGarrett… we may not like each other, but we're after the same thing here. These guys killed our own," Fryer said before disconnecting. It was as close to a truce as they were going to ever get.

"Let's go, Danno. Got a lead," he said. Danny looked heavenwards as he picked up his badge and gun.

"Finally…"

__~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_ _

_Hau'oli Travels_

The little bell over the door jingled as Chin and Lori walked in. It was a simple office: just one room partitioned off into four cubicle areas. There was a small reception desk, occupied by a lovely brunette who was now smiling at the pair in welcome.

"Hello! Welcome to Hau'oli Travels. My name is Yvette. How can I help you?" she asked. Lori stepped closer to the desk and held out a picture to the woman.

"We're with the Five-0 task force and would like to ask you a few questions about Leilani Komoa," she told her. The woman frowned as she looked at the picture.

"I'd love to be able to help, but I've only worked here for about two weeks. I've never met this Ms. Komoa. How was she affiliated with our business?" she asked.

"She worked here for about 3 years," Chin stepped in. "Is your manager or supervisor in today? We'd like to talk to them about Ms. Komoa."

The woman shook her head. "No, unfortunately not. Mr. Lewison is out at a client meeting this afternoon. And our other manager, Ms. Linn is out of state at a conference for the week. Can I get your contact information? I will make sure they have it and get in contact with you."

Chin looked to Lori, who pulled out a card. "Please, have them get in touch as soon as they can."

Yvette smiled as she took it. "I certainly will. Mahalo! And have a great day…"

Chin and Lori walked out, the little bell jingling again as they pulled the door shut behind them. Lori let out a frustrated breath.

"Well, that was a waste of time," she said. Chin nodded in agreement, as he took a quick peek in the window. Their friendly receptionist was on the phone, glancing at them only once before paying closer attention to her task.

"Did you believe the wide-eyed innocent behavior?" he asked. Lori frowned.

"You don't think she's a new hire?" she asked. Chin shrugged as he started back towards the parked car.

"I don't know. It seemed way too convenient. It should be easy enough to prove if she is a two-week employee, I suppose. We'll just have to stop back in to see if we can talk with the elusive management," he said, opening the car door.

Lori nodded as she looked back at the small office. "She was on that phone awfully quick after we left…" She pulled the passenger side door open and got into the car.

"She could just be trying to be a good employee and give her boss the run down. It's not every day that Five-0 stops in to local businesses," Chin said. The blonde looked over at him with a smirk and a shake of her head.

"Must you play the devil's advocate?" she asked. Chin smiled.

"No. But we do have to consider every angle and all the motives, otherwise we'll be chasing the wrong leads," he said. "That's not a good way to spend a day." Lori chuckled.

"Yeah, tell me about it. Well, let's go give the team the good news…" she said as they pulled out into traffic.

__~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_ _

_Wailoa Shave Ice_

"Howzit, girlie!" Kono smiled at the jolly greeting as she stepped up to the window.

"Good! How's it going here?" she asked. The big man grinned at her.

"Busy. Been busy like you wouldn't believe. Shave ice for the pretty lady?" he asked with a wink. She grinned back.

"I could use one, absolutely," Kono said. He nodded to one of the workers and pointed to her usual flavor before turning back to her.

"But that's not all you're here for?" he asked. His eyebrows furrowed in concern as she gave him a quick nod. She pulled out her cell phone , swiped through a couple of pictures before settling on one, and then handed it to him.

"Do you know this guy at all? Seen him around? Hear about him?" she asked. Kamekona stared at the first John Doe from the B&E. After a few seconds, he shook his head.

"No, never seen him," he said. Kono nodded as she took the phone back and swiped to another picture.

"How about him?" she asked, handing the phone to him again. Kamekona looked, but only shook his head again as he didn't recognize the second John Doe. Kono sighed as she took the phone back. She swiped to one more picture and showed it to the man.

"Last question, then I'll take that shave ice from you. Have you ever seen this tattoo before?" she asked. Kamekona looked at it and for a second seemed perplexed. There was a confused recognition on his face and it made her hopeful. But then, as Kamekona looked up at her, his face changed into one of alarm.

"I believe he has seen that tattoo before, Kono," a familiar voice said from behind her. As a gun dug into her back, a hand grabbed her arm. "I believe he saw it on me not more than a few minutes ago…"

Kono didn't need to turn around to confirm that Frank Delano was no longer sitting in Halawa Prison.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_To be continued…_


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Nine

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Nihi Street_

Steve and Danny walked up to the front door of an apartment that had seen better days. Danny knocked and after a few moments, the door cracked open, security chain in place.

"Can I help you?" a voice asked.

"Mrs. Ka'uhane? Hello, I'm Detective Williams and this is Commander McGarrett. We're with Five-0. We'd like to talk to you about the report you made to HPD the other day," the blond introduced. There was a small pause, but then the door closed and the security chain was audibly disengaged. The door opened again to reveal a short, kind-looking Hawaiian lady with graying hair.

"This is about Jonny," she said, shrewd eyes catching on their badges and guns before giving them her attention. "It's not good news." Danny handed her a picture of the man in their morgue. There was a hitch in her breath as she covered her mouth with her hand.

"This is Jonathan Nivens, correct?" he asked gently. It took a moment, but the lady nodded her head slowly.

"It is," she said softly. "I'm so sorry for him…"

"Mrs. Ka'uhane, can you please tell us the last time you saw Mr. Nivens?" Danny asked after taking the picture of him back. She paused to think about it for a moment.

"It was 5 days ago. I saw him taking out his garbage. We said hello to each other. He was such a polite, quiet man. He'd mentioned he had a friend coming to stay with him a few days later, he didn't want us worrying about a new face in the neighborhood. I hadn't thought a thing about it until I'd seen someone knocking at his door the other day. The man had seemed troubled. I asked if everything was alright and he just mentioned he was having trouble getting a hold of Jonny," she said with a frown.

"Was it out of character for Jonny to tell you his plans?" Steve asked. Mrs. Ka'uhane shook her head.

"Not really. We may not have much here, sir, but what we do have is community. We look out for each other. I'd always suspected Jonny was involved in some… not good things with the hours he kept. But he was a good boy, despite it. He looked out for us here and I'd never seen anything bad happen here," she told them earnestly. Then she looked off into the distance, remembering. "I'd asked him about it one day, subtly, of course. He just smiled at me and told me not to worry so much…"

"Did you speak to his friend at length?" Danny asked. Mrs. Ka'uhane shook her head.

"No, I didn't. But he was from the mainland, I think. No accent or anything. He had a small, dark carry-on bag. Nothing else. After he said he couldn't get ahold of Jonny, he left. I never saw him again. I've been watching for Jonny to get back ever since. But he never did," she said. Danny let out a breath before sharing a look with Steve.

"Alright. Thank you so much for your help," he said with a small smile. She nodded.

"I hope you find whoever did that to him. He didn't deserve that," she said before going back into her apartment. The two men stood there for a second, thinking over the information.

"So we've got a guy living here under a fake name. His neighbor has been suspicious of some sort of criminal behavior. He has a 'friend' stop by from the mainland. And then he's offed while working something in the docks," Steve summarized as he nudged Danny to start back to the truck.

"Trafficking?" Danny asked.

"Well, I can't say no to that," Steve said with a shrug as they got into the vehicle. "The question is… how sophisticated? With Fryer involved and our resources coming up empty, this has already spread wider than a small-time operation."

"Especially if Delano is in any way involved. It took Fryer three years to get one guy… that speaks to bigger things," Danny noted, remembering the dirty cop's arrogance when meeting him. Steve nodded as he took out his phone.

"Shit, Kono called. Kamekona too," he said with a frown as he quickly listened to Kono's message asking for a call back.

"Yeah, Kono called me too," Danny noted. Steve tried her over the truck's Bluetooth but it went to voicemail after a few rings. He frowned.

"Well, let's see what Kamekona needs today." He dialed the number and waited. Their friend picked up after the first ring.

"Took your time, brah," Kamekona's voice filled the truck. There was a sense of urgency to it.

"Yeah, we were interviewing a witness," Steve told him, looking over to Danny.

"What's wrong, Kamekona?" Danny asked.

"You need to get here quick. Your girl's in a bad way, but she won't let me call anyone else," he said, his voice lowering slightly.

"What?" Steve asked.

"She was here asking me some questions. But she had a visitor. He was not nice. Had a gun… called her by name," the big man informed them. Both Danny and Steve frowned. She was just supposed to be meeting with Max. What had happened in between there?

"We're on our way, Kamekona. Have you talked to Chin?" Steve asked, looking out for traffic and then swinging the truck around into the opposite direction.

"He didn't answer either. I didn't have your blonde girl's number," he said.

"Alright, alright. Sit tight," Steve said, pushing down on the accelerator. Danny gripped the door handle just a little harder than he normally did when riding with Steve.

"We're not going anywhere, brah," Kamekona said.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Wailoa Shave Ice_

Steve and Danny were out of the truck and running towards the table that Kono and Kamekona are sitting at. Kono's head lay on the table and there was an ice pack against her throat.

"What the hell happened?" Steve asked, gently sitting next to her and laying a hand on her back. It took her a second, but she finally raised her head to look at her newly arrived colleagues.

"Delano," she scraped out. Steve cursed. "He's escaped Halawa."

"Kono, babe," Danny started as he eyed her red and rapidly bruising throat. It looked a bit more menacing in the fading evening light. "What'd he do?"

"He found me here, I think he was waiting for me," she said. Kamekona nodded in agreement.

"He bought a shave ice a few minutes before her. Sat at that table," he said, pointing. "Then after she asked her questions, he pulled a gun and took her to the side." He pointed again to the side of the building, out of view from most pedestrians.

"He took my phone," she said, laying her forehead in her palm. There was a screech of tires as Chin's vehicle pulled up to the curb a few yards away.

"Kono!" he cried, Lori following on his heels. Steve stood to give the cousins room to embrace. Chin gently touched Kono's neck, tilting her face up slightly to get a good look.

"I'm fine, cuz," she said. "Nothing a little ice and aspirin won't fix." Chin looked up to the others.

"Delano," Danny answered the unasked question. It took a lot to surprise Chin, or at least visibly surprise the usually calm man. But his eyes were wide as he looked between Steve and Danny.

"Seriously? How'd he get out? Especially without us knowing about it?" he asked. Steve crossed his arms across his chest, his usual game face on.

"That's what I'd like to know," he said.

"So, Delano's out. Threatening Kono…" Chin sighed.

"He does have a bit of a beef with her. With all of us, really," Danny pointed out. Chin looked to his cousin.

"What did he say to you?" he asked. Kono shook her head.

"Nothing more than the normal threats. We're out of our league, we'll pay, he'sin control, he's watching us, et cetera, et cetera, cue bad movie villain. I don't care about that right now. Or this," she said, indicating her throat where he'd held her to make a point. "We've got some bigger problems.

"You tried to call earlier," Steve prompted. She met his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah. I met with Max. He confirmed sniper kills for both our docks John Doe and Reyes. The ballistics match," she said. Lori sighed.

"Well, there's our connection on that end," she said. Chin nodded.

"That's not all," Kono said. "Delano showed up here with the tattoo we've been looking at. The same tattoo on our B&E John Doe."

"So Fryer's been right this whole time. Delano may have been locked up, but he was still running things," Danny said with a curse. Kono shook her head.

"I think it's bigger than that," she told them.

"What makes you say that?" Steve asked, sitting down on the picnic table again. Her eyes met his and held.

"I'd seen our other John Doe before. I hadn't realized it until I'd had Max show me again and I got a good look," she said. Steve frowned.

"Where?"

"When I'd gone out to dinner with Adam Noshimuri," she said. There was silence as Steve processed that. Chin's jaw tightened, but he didn't say anything. Danny's eyes went wide as he rocked on his feet, crossing his arms.

" _Excuse_  me?" he asked. "What, exactly, are you doing going out to dinner with Adam Noshimuri?"

"He asked?" Kono tried to keep it light. Danny snorted.

"Gotta do better than that, babe." Kono looked to Steve, who looked to have made a decision.

"I asked her to keep tabs on Noshimuri," he admitted. This time Danny directed his surprise at his partner.

"Excuse me? You  _asked_  her?" There was definite anger in his voice. "When?"

Steve ran a hand over his face as everyone stared at him. "Chin and Malia's wedding."

Danny started to pace in order to keep from punching his partner. "Chin and Malia's wedding… and you didn't think to read us in on this? You sent her undercover and…"

"I did no such thing," Steve growled. Kono let out a breath.

"That was my doing… I… may have taken a few creative liberties with the request," she confessed, studiously avoiding Steve's gaze. Danny's eyes darted between the two of them. Lori watched this interaction with interest, and it did not go unobserved by Chin.

"Okay, everyone calm down," he said. Danny looked to the other man.

"Well then, you knew, didn't you?" he asked as he connected the dots. "It all makes sense now. The timing, your pissy moods…"

"I knew about Noshimuri for a while. The part about Steve asking, I did not now about until recently," he told them.

"Anyway!" Kono cut in, trying to keep things from getting out of hand. "We're getting away from the point…" Danny looked at her with a frown.

"We're not done with this subject," he told her, the father voice he employed with Grace apparent. She leveled him a glare.

"For now, we are, because there's more important information than who I'm going to dinner with," she growled. "For instance… I saw our John Doe at a restaurant we were at. What caught my eye… was a strange tattoo."

"Let me guess, the same tattoo on Reyes' girlfriend, on our docks guy, and now on Delano," Lori chimed in. Kono nodded.

"I noticed it when he delivered a message to Adam at our table," she said, looking around at her teammates. "Adam told me it was a business update." Danny threw his hands up into the air.

"Holy  _shit_ …" he cried to no one. "We've already got Delano up to his knees in this, and now you're telling me there's a Yakuza connection?"

"We did say it was likely sophisticated, Danny," Steve noted. Danny shook his head.

"No, no, no, no… I get to rant about this. I deserve to rant about this," he told them all. "You realize that this is now probably international. And makes our job just that much harder…"

The group's silence confirmed his thought.

"And now the head of the beast just got all the more mysterious," he added for effect.

"You've got that right," a voice said off to their side. Danny groaned as she saw who it was.

"And now, we've got  _this_. I don't get paid enough to do this job," he complained. Joe White stood watching them, hands in his pockets.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Five-0 HQ_

As the group walked back into the building, Chin grabbed Lori's elbow and guided her to the side, out of earshot of the rest of the team.

"I hope you're not going to upset the dynamic of this team by tattling to the governor on what you heard today," he said. Lori gave him a hard look.

"You mean about Kono making a love connection with an international cartel boss's son?" she asked, a bit of a bite in her tone. "Besides, it looked like you were all upsetting the dynamic enough without my help…" Chin let out a breath.

"You need to understand. We work well together. We get results. And yes… emotions get in the way sometimes. But they always have. That's not only human nature, but it's also the personalities on this team. Does it affect how we work? No, I don't think so. Not in the big picture. In fact, I think it makes us a better team," he said. Lori watched him closely.

"So, the unprofessional emotions I've been observing these past few weeks… they make you a better team when you can barely speak to each other, or cover up pertinent information to an investigation?" she asked. Chin held up his hands as a gesture of surrender.

"I'm not saying what has been done is right or wrong. But as I've also observed, you have also been a part of unprofessional emotions that you seem to think engulf the place," he said, eyebrow raised. Lori looked away with a slight blush.

"So basically you're saying if I keep your secret, you'll keep mine?" she asked. Chin thought back to a moment during Kono's undercover operation, back when emotions were running  _very_  high. Something Fryer had said.

"It's absolutely no secret, Lori, that Five-0 runs fast and loose. So whatever you have to say on that won't be news to anyone. The governor included. And frankly, you're broadcasting your own emotions enough that it's not a secret to anyone who is looking. So, no. I'm not saying anything of the sort," he told her. "I'm just telling you that you don't have a group like Five-0 and there not be some unique aspect to the dynamic."

Lori watched him for a minute as she thought through his words. Chin calmly watched her back.

"Duly noted, Lieutenant," she said finally before turning and going to join the others. Chin let out a breath as he, too, went to join the others.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_ To be continued… _


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Ten

__~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_ _

_Five-0 HQ_

Joe White stood at the smart table with four pairs of curious eyes and one pair of distinctly pissed off eyes. He met Steve McGarrett's gaze head on.

"Listen… Steve, I did what I had to do," he opened with. The younger man's eyes did not soften, nor did he relax his stance.

"Is Hiro Noshimuri alive, Joe?" Steve asked. "Because if you'd been in contact or around at all, you'd have noticed that there's sort of a vacuum in that particular arena of Hawaii that's kick-started a  _bit_  of problem." The older man raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm.

"Hiro is… alive. At least he was when I saw him last," he said. Steve's frown deepened.

"Which was when?" he demanded.

"About three days ago?"

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "Are you asking me or telling me? Because I can't tell, Joe."

Joe shook his head. "It's a bit of a blur with all the travel. It was three days ago. I'd had him under watch, but as I was prepping to come back here, he was extracted from under our noses. Our source tells us it was out of Japan."

"You're telling me that a cartel boss, under ex-Navy SEAL guard, was just spirited off like it was nothing?" Danny asked, his eyebrows in his hairline for how surprised he was. He spared Steve a glance and saw that 'aneurysm face' was in full effect.

"I'm pretty damn sure that Yakuza got Hiro out, but that does not mean Wo Fat isn't involved. I'm almost dead certain that Hiro is either Shelburne himself or has been partnered very closely with Shelburne. And we all know Wo Fat wants Shelburne, badly. So wherever Hiro is, Wo Fat is likely to not be very far behind," Joe informed them

"So Hiro is basically still classified as missing since he hasn't shown up himself and no one's claimed credit for taking him out," Lori piped in. "If Yakuza got him out, that could mean they're likely involved in a completely different arena than what we're already dealing with." Joe's gaze slid to her.

"Or both. That's entirely why I'm here," he said. "I admit it, I shook the hornets' nest by absconding with Hiro in the first place. And I'm going to need your help pinning him down to keep this contained. Whether it's with Yakuza out of Japan, or with XYZ Company in Timbuktu, who the hell knows?"

"So you've come to Five-0 for help?" Chin asked, surprised at the other man.

"I only go to the best," Joe said with a grin, looking to Steve, who still very much unimpressed. Danny just let out an undignified snort of disbelief as he crossed his arms.

"You're only saying that because you trained this mad bastard. Ego much?" he grumbled. Then he rolled his neck and got back on task. "So, we've got Delano to worry about, Wo Fat, Noshimuri the younger, now Noshimuri the older, and then… you know, likely whoever is pulling all the puppet strings if it's not one of those particular model citizens."

"I hate to be the one to say it," Chin cut in. "But we're getting a little stretched, Steve." Joe kept his eyes on the man in charge.

"I'm here. Use me however you can. I'm here for your help, but I'm also here to help," he said. After a moment, Steve gave a short nod.

"Fine. I think it's safe to say we'll be depending on Fryer with the Delano angle. Kono…" he hesitated for a split second, but it was enough to broadcast his opinion of the situation. "You can touch base with him tomorrow. Right now, we'll go talk with the wait staff about our first John Doe." She nodded.

"Lori and I still need to follow-up with staff at the travel agency. We've got the home address of the owner," Chin noted. Steve nodded.

"Do that, and after… Lori, if you could get a hold of someone at Homeland Security and get extra eyes out for Wo Fat or Hiro Noshimuri, it could help us out. And get eyes on Adam Noshimuri, ASAP. He could lead us to Hiro if he gets in contact," Steve requested. The blonde gave a quick nod of confirmation.

"Joe and I can start in on Hiro, figure out last knowns and everything," Danny supplied. Steve nodded.

"Alright, let's do what we can for now. But go get some rest, too. I want fresh eyes in the morning," he said. Everyone nodded and set out to do what needed to be done.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

The silence in Steve's truck wasn't necessarily uncomfortable. There just was an air of unsaid things. And considering the past few months, those things could be numerous.

"Are you sure you want me dealing with Fryer, Boss?" Kono asked quietly, as she looked out the window. The sun was just setting below the horizon, settling Waikiki into hues of pinks and purples. When Steve didn't answer right away, she chanced a look over to him. His posture was still relaxed, but his jaw had tightened.

"Boss?" she asked again. Steve let out a breath.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I want you dealing with Fryer. Delano is at large. He specifically targeted you. And Fryer has all the information on the son of a bitch. It makes sense. Since you are at least five steps ahead of us on Delano and how he works, it would put us at a disadvantage to send anyone else."

Kono turned to look out at the road ahead of them. "Right." After her edgy response, Steve let out a small, tense chuckle before looking over at her.

"Listen, that… I realize that came out all wrong," he told her, causing her to look over at him in return with a raised eyebrow. "Can we get one thing straight here? Like write it in stone or something so it can't be debated from here on out?"

"What's that?"

"I trust you," he said simply. When she didn't say anything, he continued. "I trust you with my life, the team's lives. I trust your instincts, and I trust you in doing this job. No matter what." Kono swallowed hard. Leave it to Steve McGarrett to actually read the subtle layers of a conversation when she hadn't expected it.

"It's not that, Boss," she said. Steve shook his head.

"No, I think it is. You need to know that, and I need you to know that," he insisted. "But, call me biased if you want, the person I  _don't_  trust is Vince Fryer. He may not be like Delano, but he is definitely a man after his own agenda, no matter who gets caught in the crossfire."

"I don't trust Fryer either, Boss," Kono told him. "If you've thought that, you're wrong. I was caught in his crossfire before, I know how it works."

"I know…" Kono reached over at touched Steve's shoulder at his response.

"You think I blame you, don't you?" she asked, letting her hand drop. He tensed at the question, confirming it. Kono shook her head. "I don't, you know. I did what I had to do to make it back to Five-0, and you all had my back when I needed it most. So let's also put that in stone, too." The corner of Steve's lips tipped up slightly in the vestiges of a smile after a moment.

"Okay," he told her. She smiled back as Steve turned the truck onto Helumoa Road. When he parked the truck, he held her back from getting out by a hand on her arm.

"When I said I trusted your instincts…" he said, letting his eyes fall on the Waikiki Parc Hotel in front of them. "That means I also trust your instincts on Adam Noshimuri." Her eyes followed his for a moment. When she looked back at him, their eyes met. She could tell it took him a lot to say that, considering who Adam Noshimuri was.

"To be honest, Steve, you may not have to ask after all," she confided quietly, referencing their past conversation about the younger Noshimuri. "The jury's still out, officially, but… I  _do_  have a bad feeling about this." Steve nodded, acknowledging those feelings. He had a bad feeling himself. And it wasn't just because he'd rather keep Kono as far away from Adam as he could… which was a subject he'd rather not dwell on too much.

"Well, let's go figure out what we can, and go from there," he said. They both exited the vehicle and made their way to where the restaurant was located.

It was a weekday, so the restaurant patronage wasn't as crowded or busy as it could have been. When they'd asked to talk to the manager, the hostess took them right back to where they needed to go. The man, a Mr. Himura, was giving orders to some of the wait staff as they entered his office. Kono and Steve waited patiently for him to finish and dismiss the group. When he saw them, and the badges at their hips, he approached. But not without giving Kono an extra, yet subtle, look over. It never failed to set Steve's teeth on edge whenever the people they interviewed did that, obvious or not.

"How can I help you, officers?" Mr. Himura asked.

"We'd like to ask you a couple of questions about a former employee of yours," Steve told him. Mr. Himura nodded as he went to close the door for more privacy.

"Does this employee have a name?" he asked. Kono pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture.

"Unfortunately, we don't have one. That is why we are here. Do you happen to recognize this man?" she asked, holding out the phone to him as he came to stand in front of them once more. Mr. Himura took it and studied it carefully.

"I admit that I am having trouble placing him. Are you sure he was an employee here?" he asked. Kono gave Steve a quick look.

"Well, I'd dined here a few weeks ago. He was in uniform and had served my companion and I our drinks," she said. The manager looked thoughtful as he continued to look at the picture.

"There was a private event a few weeks ago," he mentioned, as he looked up to assess Kono again. "To be honest, I thought I'd recognized you from somewhere. You were Mr. Noshimuri's companion, am I correct?"

Kono gave a quick nod. "I was. And unfortunately, this man is part of an on-going investigation. We have been unable to find any identification for him."

"That would be odd, since we do pretty thorough background checks on our employees. With our clientele, we have to be certain. But, I am not 100 percent sure he was our employee. For Mr. Noshimuri, we allowed two of his own staff members to be allowed on the crew the night he rented the place," the man said, handing her phone back to her. He went behind his desk, though, and started going through a file on his computer.

"We do have to have record of them, for security reasons as they are allowed through a good portion of our premises. They would have had temporary employee badges. And we record those when we give them out," Mr. Himura said. He gave a small smile as he found what he was looking for. "We logged one badge out to an Eiichi Akamatsu and a Randal Cortez."

"Do you have further information on them?" Steve asked. The other man nodded as he pushed another button.

"I will print it out for you. They have their pictures there as well." He stood and retrieved the necessary papers. Kono looked them over quickly before handing them to Steve.

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Himura," she said. The man nodded.

"I hope this helps," he told them. "And if you need anything else, please let me know."

Steve led Kono out of the office. His eyes went over the pieces of paper one more time.

"It would seem this Cortez is our guy." Kono nodded in agreement.

"If Cortez is his real name," she said, wryly noting how their luck had been going. "It seems a bit odd that Adam would have two men on his personal staff there. He was always so careful to keep the professional and personal separate. Or… at least he seemed that way…"

They exited the hotel and made their way to Steve's truck.

"What better way to keep tabs on business, having someone you trust there. Especially if something big is going down," Steve said. Kono nodded slowly in agreement. It was silly how much this new information was affecting her. It was strange to find herself suddenly in this personal and professional tug of war. And it was more than obvious as Steve stopped them from continuing any further by gently grabbing her wrist and turning her to look at him.

"Kono…" he started. But she shook her head to stop him.

"Steve, no. Stop whatever you are about to say. I'm a big girl, I can handle the situation. Whatever happens from here on out, I can handle it," she assured.

"I'm more concerned about  _you_ , not the situation," he told her, surprising them both with the admission. She smiled.

"Don't worry about me. I'm not in so deep that I can't get myself out," she said. "Adam is… was… a nice guy. We had a connection, and I used it to do what I could to keep tabs on him. Did I genuinely like him? Sure. And I think it was returned. But at this point, it's possible he was likely using me just as much as I was using him…"

Steve let out a breath as they continued towards the truck. "The fact that you are in this at all kinda pisses me off, considering I'm the one that put you there." Kono chuckled.

"You didn't put me anywhere. I  _chose_  to do this. What is it Danny always says about your control issues?" she teased. Steve unlocked the truck for them to get in.

"Yeah, well, Danny has a whole list of things he says," he said back. Anything she was going to say was cut off as her phone buzzed. The lighthearted feeling she'd just been enjoying sunk like a heavy weight as she read the caller I.D.

_Adam_.

With a hesitant breath, she connected the call while climbing into the truck.

"Adam," she greeted, paying no attention to the way Steve was suddenly on alert next to her.

" _Kono…"_

"Hi." She tried to play it normal.

" _So, I honestly can't help wondering when I will get to see you again."_  Kono fought the blush that was rising with everything in her. Adam Noshimuri was a charming man, no doubt, and good-looking to boot. But… the sad reminder of why she and Steve were where they were brought her back down to earth again

"Well, I'm working right now, actually," she told him.

" _Not all night, I hope. I was thinking I could maybe convince you to come by."_

"How about I give you a call after I'm done?" she asked.

" _That sounds like a plan. I'll have a chilled bottle of your favorite_ _rosé waiting…"_

"There are some girls in the world that aren't impressed when guys remember their favorite wine," she said with a smile. She could hear his answering smile.

" _But_   _you're not one of them."_  The certainty was in his voice.

"Awfully sure of yourself," she commented. Adam chuckled.

" _I have a suspicion you wouldn't look at me twice if I wasn't at least a little sure of myself."_  Well, he had her there. So, she gave him a half-hum of agreement.

"I'll call you when I'm done," she told him again.

" _Looking forward to it."_  He said a quick good-bye before disconnecting. Kono let out a breath and let her head fall back onto the seat's headrest. And she tried to pretend that Steve hadn't heard her flirting over the phone with a man that could be a suspect in a lot more than just a murder.

"You okay?" Steve finally asked. Kono shook herself out of the self-doubt.

"Of course." It sounded a lot more certain than she felt.

"You going to call him back then?" Steve asked with an air of nonchalance as he gently swerved through evening traffic towards headquarters.

"Well, if I suddenly dropped off his radar for no reason, I have a feeling he would suspect something," she told him. He tilted his head in a way that indicated agreement. Silence fell for a heavy moment as Kono contemplated what to do. She realized, though, that she honestly had no better sounding board than the man sitting next to her.

"He wants me to come over," she told him plainly.

"You don't have to," he said, almost too casually, too quickly. Kono smiled as she looked over at him.

"I know that. But… I do want to distance myself a bit. And I can't do that without a conversation. What better time to do that?" she asked. Steve opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it for a second.

"Lori should hopefully have some eyes on Adam's place soon," he said finally. "If you need anything, you'll have that as backup. And call me, text me… anything, if you feel uncomfortable or need more backup."

"I will." The ride was silent the rest of the way to headquarters. Steve pulled up next to her little red car and let her get out. Before she could say good-night and close the door, he called out to her.

"I mean it," he told her, his blue eyes locked on hers. Kono could read the threat that he'd sit outside of Adam's house himself if she'd let him in them plain as day. So, she gave him a firm nod in response. Then, before she closed the door, she gave him a smile and a wink.

"I couldn't ask for better backup."

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_To be continued…_


	11. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Eleven

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Five-0 HQ_

Danny was sure he would get whiplash for all the times he looked over at Joe since everyone had parted ways. The older man was difficult to wrap his brain around. This man was an ex-Navy SEAL, he'd been good friends with John McGarrett, had trained and mentored Steve…

"If you've got something on your mind son, say it," Joe said without looking up from the computer. And apparently the man was also as observant as a hawk.

"Alright, I can't help but be curious…" Danny said, leaning back against the smart table. Joe looked over to him and raised an eyebrow.

"About?"

"With all your evasive tactics, Rambo-like covert ops skills, interrogation techniques, high-tech gadgetry, military prowess and love of all things that go boom, I'm confused as to how one man got away," the blond mused. Joe lifted a brow.

"It's been known to happen," he answered evasively. Danny snorted.

"Yeah, Wo Fat… now Noshimuri," he listed off. "Have to admit, Joe, my confidence level is waning."

"You  _had_  a confidence level?" Joe asked, eyes narrowed. "From what Steve tells me about all the bitching you do, I'd assume there was no confidence to begin with."

"I… well…" Danny stumbled, suddenly being put on the spot. "No, see, you can't judge that. It's what we do. It's part of the partner contract. We give each other shit. It's not that there's no confidence. There's plenty of confidence, alright. I just can't let that guy get a more invincible-like ego than he already has, okay?"

"Hmmm…" Joe muttered non-commitally. Danny waited a breath or two before asking the inevitable question.

"Steve says I bitch a lot?" The insecurity was plain as day in his scrunched up forehead as he shuffled his feet, hands on hips. Joe just smiled.

"Among other things. He also says you're an excellent father, a loyal friend, and a great cop," the man reassured. Danny's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Really? Oh… well…" he stumbled. "Okay." Reassured, he went back to looking at the information on the smart table.

"We've been tracking a known Yakuza affiliate out of Osaka. There has been plenty of movement throughout their organization to suggest that they had a hand in Hiro's disappearance," Joe told him. Danny frowned.

"So what, exactly, are you thinking is going to happen now that Hiro's in the wind on his own?" he asked. Joe sighed.

"I wasn't lying when I said I shook the hornets' nest," he admitted. "With Adam Noshimuri presumably covering the ground here in Hawaii and Hiro sitting in Japan out of our reach for the moment… this could end up as a full-on attempt for Yakuza to take over. Right now, they've played it soft. They're here on borrowed land, they were willing to work their way in slowly to make themselves a permanent staple among the hierarchy. Hiro was looked down on for that strategy as his leaders in Tokyo felt that aggressive movement was necessary."

"Aggressive more or less meaning violent, bloody, and hostile," Danny muttered.

"Exactly," Joe agreed. "But since Hiro had,  _more or less_ , been in custody, the rest of Yakuza has been sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to come in to Hawaii guns blazing. This may have just been the red flag needed to provoke it... and to provoke Hiro. The rest of Yakuza would happily encourage it. Especially now with Wo Fat on their tail. They'll want to take him out as soon as possible because he is a player here."

"Speaking of Wo Fat…" Danny said, running a hand over his face wearily. "What exactly is Steve's investment in him?"

"You mean besides the murder of the governor he was framed for and possible involvement in his father's death?" Joe asked sardonically. Danny rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, besides that," he said. Joe let out a breath.

"That, I can't say. Steve is just like his father in his stubbornness and wanting to keep the hard parts to himself, especially if they are only suspicions. What I do know won't even scratch the surface of what is going on," he said.

"Just tell me this: is it going to be a last man standing sort of situation?" Danny asked.

"It very well could. Especially if Wo Fat had a direct connection to John McGarrett's death," he said.

"Victor Hesse…"

"Victor Hesse was no more than a trigger man. A vengeful, opportunistic trigger man. John had something that someone wanted silenced. And Victor Hesse was the tool to do that," Joe said.

"Jesus. So many things all tangled up in each other," Danny complained, leaning on the table.

"No one said the job was easy," Joe commented with a smile.

"True enough," Danny granted. "I hope Steve and Kono got a hit on their John Doe. Between those two they should be able to intimidate the hell out the poor person they're interrogating."

"Navy SEAL tactics at their best. Steve's got a glare that had military generals buckling," the older man laughed.

"Kono's got a tough that rivals his, believe me," Danny warned. Joe grinned.

"I look at her and I think she's one of those sweet little surfer girls I'd have loved to have run into years ago," he said with a wink. Danny snorted a laugh.

"Sweet… Sure. But you, my friend, have yet to see the level of hell that 'girl' can unleash," he told him. Joe gave him a look that plain said he'd like to see it.

"Perhaps she'll play the good cop and Steve'll just play the glaring cop," Joe suggested. Danny smirked.

"I'll take that bet. It's just not in Steve's M.O. to let an opportunity to tear a page out of the police procedure manual pass on by him. And she's no better sometimes. Those two are two little peas in a camouflaged, adrenaline-laced pod," Danny commented as he typed in a few pieces of information and frowned at the lack of answer that was returned. "They'll get something. And I'll take anything at this point because we've still got zippo on anything substantial…"

"Try…" Joe started before the ringing of his telephone interrupted. "Hello?"

Danny concentrated on paging through some of the local police reports in regards to the local Yakuza.

"Yeah, okay…" Joe said into his phone. "I will be there in 20 minutes." Danny's head shot up to look at the other man.

"What's going on?" he asked as Joe disconnected the call.

"I think you can take it from there," Joe told him, patting him on the shoulder.

"What?" Danny frowned. "We've got more to do than just popping in a few numbers and looking through police reports…"

Joe shook his head. "Sorry. I gotta go."

"What just happened here? You've got a face… not like Steve's aneurysm face, but a face. I'm guessing it's your version of said face," Danny commented, crossing his arms and noting Joe's demeanor.

"With that call, I may have caught a lead and I want to make an inquiry first. With a contact that gets skittish if there's too many people around. If it's anything, I'll let you know," he said, before giving the other man a quick salute and walking out. The blond just shook his head.

"So much for working together," Danny muttered. "Damn Navy SEALS…"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Steve arrived home to see the lights on. There were only two people that he'd given a key to in the past year. One of them being Joe in case he needed a place to crash. And since Joe was currently occupied, the only other option was Catherine. With a sigh, he put his truck into park and turned it off. After their last conversation, he wasn't exactly sure how to go about things. He'd said he'd think about a relationship… but on this last day of her furlough, he wasn't sure he had an answer or wanted to give her one.

Which, he supposed, was likely answer enough for the big question.

As he closed the door behind him and walked towards the kitchen, Catherine came down the stairs.

"You're home," she commented with a smile. He nodded.

"Yeah."

"I was going to order something in for dinner. Is there anything you want?" she asked. Steve shook his head.

"No, whatever you want is fine," he said, unclipping his badge from his belt and setting his gun on the table. Catherine approached him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"It's my last day on the island for a while. We can wait to make the food call. Want to send a sailor off the right way?" she asked with a cheeky grin. Normally, Steve would have answered with a cheeky grin of his own and answered her request. But as his arms returned her embrace, he realized it wasn't what was on his mind. The funny thing was he didn't even need to say a word. Catherine stepped back.

"What's wrong?" she asked quietly. Steve shook his head.

"Nothing," he said. Catherine gave him a wry smile.

"Don't tell me it's nothing, Steve. I've known you long enough to know when there's something," she said.

"It's nothing, Cath. Really. It's just been a long, frustrating day, after a bunch of long, frustrating days," he said, going to the refrigerator and pulling out two beers. He handed one to her before popping the top off of his. She stared at him for a moment before opening her own.

"How's the team?" she asked. Steve swallowed the first cold sip gratefully as he thought over the answer he wanted to give.

"Following up on some things then calling it a night," was all he said. Then he let out a breath. "Joe showed up today…" Catherine's eyes widened as she watched him go into the living room and sit heavily down on the couch. She followed.

"Joe," she repeated. "After you tore out of here to go looking for him and to come back three weeks later empty handed, he shows up on your doorstep  _now_?" Steve let out a sarcastic chuckle.

"That sums it up pretty well, yeah," he said. Catherine went and curled up at the other end of the couch.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. Steve shrugged as he took another drink from his bottle and leaned his head back on the couch cushion.

"Well, right now we're after the same goal. Once we get it, I'm not sure," he said. They fell into a comfortable silence for long moments.

"You could have him arrested, you know," she reminded him. Steve let out a breath.

"Yeah, I know. And he knows it too. And now, it's likely the governor knows he's on the island, so it may actually come to it," he said.

"How would the governor… oh… Lori," Catherine started before reminding herself.

"And that's a subject for another day," he closed the conversation topic. Another comfortable silence fell between them. It was something that they'd always appreciated in each other; they could just sit and 'be'… Steve closed his eyes and enjoyed it, the sound of the ocean just beyond the doors starting to relax him a bit.

"Steve," Catherine started quietly. "I had a call this afternoon." She took a sip of her beer and watched him closely.

"Okay," he prompted, opening his eyes and shifting his head over to look at her.

"It was from Commander Burnett," she said. Steve processed that for a moment.

"In D.C.," he said. Her dark head nodded.

"He wanted to give me the option to be stationed in D.C. Permanently," she told him.

"That's an excellent opportunity, Cath," he said. "What did you say?"

"I told him I'd have to think about it."

"What's the other option?" he asked with a frown. "To continue floating from assignment to assignment?"

"I could ask for a permanent assignment here," she said, her fingers playing at the label on the bottle. Steve's eyes caught on hers for a long moment.

"Hawaii's a great place to be," he said quietly. Catherine chuckled as she broke their gaze to look out at the dark ocean.

"You can't even give me a maybe, can you?" she asked in reference to their last conversation, a bit of bitterness seeping into her question. Steve let out a breath and sat up, elbows resting on his knees.

"I can't say what I think you want to hear…" he said, bowing his head in shame.

"Why not?" Catherine finally asked the pointed question that they'd dance around over the years. They'd been perfectly happy in the arrangement to even bother asking those types of questions. Except Steve hadn't expected to find his way back home and want to stay. Things had changed, though, monumentally.

"I don't know. I honestly don't know," he said.

"I know we were always honest with each other in that this wasn't something serious and that neither one of us wanted serious," she told him. "But over the last year I'd been thinking I'd wanted to try. And now with the option to stay…"

"But Hawaii isn't your home, Cath," Steve reminded her. She nodded, allowing that. It was something she'd told him over the years.

"I do love it here, though. And I  _would_  stay," she countered meaningfully. "So,  _that's_ not the issue."

"There  _is_  no issue," he told her, shaking his head. Catherine stood and set her beer onto the coffee table.

"Yeah, there is," she said. After a long pause she tucked her hands in her shorts pockets and looked at him. "You're waiting, Steve. For something. I don't know what, but you are. And it's become more and more obvious lately that you aren't waiting for me. Or even a chance at a future with me." Her eyes watered slightly as she expressed that. Steve ran a hand over his face before looking up at her.

"I'll be honest, Cath, I don't think of the future much. I haven't really since I couldn't put the old man in it anymore. I spent years away from these islands, away from my home, telling myself there was time enough to come back. So, when I realized that some of that time was no longer possible, I simply stopped thinking about it," he admitted. Catherine nodded in sad agreement.

"I think I knew that," she said. "I think I knew that since the minute you transferred to the Reserves, all to come back here."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too." Catherine ran a gentle hand over his shoulder as she passed by, leaving him to his beer.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Owens Street  
Honolulu_

Chin pulled up to the front of a modest two-story home and shut the engine off. He and Lori both got out of the vehicle and approached. Lori rang the doorbell, looking around the premises as they waited. Before long a blonde woman came to the door, looking out the window with a confused frowned.

"Can I help you?" she asked, looking at both the badges and the guns at Chin and Lori's hips.

"Are you Mrs. Renee Lawrence?" Lori asked.

"Yes, is there a problem?" she asked.

"We'd just like to ask you a few questions. Is your husband here as well?" Chin asked.

"Yes, he's out back. Please come in. Can I ask what this would be regarding?" Mrs. Lawrence asked.

"We need to ask you a few questions about the business you own and manage," Lori told her.

"The travel agency? Has something happened?" she asked as she led them through the home and out onto the lanai.

"Travis? There are some police officers here," she called. "They say they have some questions about the agency…"

"The agency?" a male voice said from off to the side where a grill was in action. The dark-haired man wiped his hands on a nearby towel and came around the grill to greet the newcomers. "Nothing's happened, has it?" Chin looked to Lori, who nodded to him.

"No, nothing's happened concerning the state of your business. But, there have been some breaking and entering calls that have come to HPD and Five-0's attention regarding a couple of homes here in Honolulu. There was a connection between the two in that they'd both been houses that had taken advantage of the services you offer with Hau'oli Travels," Chin said. Mr. Lawrence nodded.

"Yes. I'd heard about those. We will do whatever we can to help the police figure out who did that to those poor families," he said.

"Well, I regret to tell you that this case is more than just breaking and entering. It's actually about murder. The entire Riley family did not make it," Lori said.

"Oh god, that's terrible," Mrs. Lawrence said, a hand over her mouth. Mr. Lawrence let out a heavy breath.

"So, due to that connection, we have to ask if anything strange happened at the agency prior to the first break-in. Were any employees acting strange, did any clients come in that did not seem normal?" Chin asked. Mrs. Lawrence shook her head.

"We are a very small, family-run company. We are extremely careful in who we take as clients due to that. And our staff is a small one. I trust each and every one of them, implicitly," she said. Mr. Lawrence nodded.

"I agree with my wife on that. But…" he trailed off. His wife looked over at him.

"But? What kind of a but?" she asked. He let out a breath.

"I didn't want to say anything, because I knew it would worry you," he said, looking at her before looking back to Chin and Lori. "The issue has since been fixed, but a couple of weeks ago, our servers had been hacked into. Whoever it had been had access to client lists, account numbers, everything."

"What?" Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed. She started to pace. "You mean that some bad person out there had our client lists? That means… oh god… that means  _we_  could be the reason that family is dead…"

"Mrs. Lawrence, please calm down," Chin said. "We simply don't know that."

"What recovery tactics did you use?" Lori asked Mr. Lawrence.

"Well, I immediately called our bank and other organizations that keep our sensitive information to alert them. I'd made sure that we sent an alert to all of our customers. And I called our technology provider to help figure out where things went wrong and to beef up our security," he said. "It was immediately, the next day we had everything back in place again."

"Do you think any of your employees could have done that?" Chin asked. Mrs. Lawrence immediately began shaking her head.

"No, no, no. Absolutely not. Like I said, we're a family-run business. My sister is one of our agents. His cousin is another. His cousin's wife does our accounting and HR work. And Travis and I also do consultations. Our receptionist is a friend of our niece. So we're small. I trust each and every one of them," she said.

"I have to agree with my wife on that, too. I don't think any of the employees would do anything like that," he said.

"Okay," Loris said. "If you can think of anything else, or if you have any questions, will you please let us know?" Mr. Lawrence nodded as he took the card from her.

"Absolutely," Mrs. Lawrence said. "I hope you find out who is doing this…"

Chin and Lori let themselves out and made their way back to the car.

"Think they're telling the truth?" Lori asked as Chin started back to the office.

"If they are, then there's the hacking angle that we will need to dig into. If they're not… it's likely the whole 'family' is involved," he said.

"Tomorrow I'll look into the rest of the employees. Family lies to each other just as much as other people do," she said. Chin's eyebrow quirked.

"That's pretty cynical," he said. Lori just smirked.

"But true. You know it well enough yourself," she said. Chin's jaw clenched at the jab. She immediately looked regretful. "Sorry. I  _meant_  through the job, not anything else."

Chin nodded tightly at her apology, but the rest of the ride was silent back to headquarters.

Ten minutes later, Chin pulled into the parking space next to Lori's car.

"I'm going to head inside for a few minutes. I want to run a full background on Mr. Lawrence just to cover all our bases," Chin said. Lori nodded as she got out.

"Alright. I'll head home and do some calling to my contacts at Homeland Security. See you tomorrow," she said with a quick smile and wave.

As soon as Chin got into the building, he sat down at the smart table and pulled up all the information he could on Travis Lawrence. He paged through some of the basics: birth certificate, marriage license, driver's license, passport. When he got to the business dealings, he paid a bit closer attention as he looked through a list of failed businesses he had had in the past 8 years. The first business in conjunction with his wife, Renee, was the first one that had lasted more than 12 months. That was Hau'oli Travels. With a frown, he dug a little deeper into the past businesses. Each of those businesses had a silent partner involved listed as a corporation, a different one each time. Curious, Chin put each of the corporations through their own background checks. The first two failed businesses… their silent partners had been high functioning businesses in their own right and had pulled out a few months into the Lawrence business' life. The second two failed businesses, those partners stuck with Mr. Lawrence until the bitter end. And those two corporations were owned by a myriad of other corporations.

Chin let out a sigh as he conducted more searches on those two particular corporations. As he waited, he looked through some of the banking records for the travel agency. Noting a technology firm on the payment schedule from a few weeks ago, Chin did a quick look-up and found their contact number. It never hurt to do a bit of fact checking.

"Bit Solutions," the voice greeted.

"Hello. My name is Lieutenant Kelly and I'm with Five-0. I've been speaking with a client of yours, Hau'oli Travels. They'd mentioned that you'd done an identity protection and recovery plan for them. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about that," Chin inquired. The man on the other end of the phone paused for a moment as he looked through the records. He cleared his throat.

"No, actually. You must have been misinformed. We didn't do any sort of identity protection or recovery. The owner just had a couple of monitors replaced and a different back-up server put in," the man said. Chin apologized for the mix-up and hung up. It was highly unlikely that the service Mr. Lawrence had required would have been paid in cash, as it would have been a business expense.

So, Mr. Lawrence lied about his little technology problem. That likely wasn't going to lead anywhere good. He picked up his phone and gave Steve a call.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lori made her calls to Homeland Security, and even touched base with her Interpol contacts just to cover more bases while she could. It would save them all a call later and it was all pretty standard. She'd also arranged for a couple of plain-clothes officers to sit on the Noshimuri compound. But she made one more call, under the pretense of getting those officers some extra surveillance equipment.

"Lori," the governor's voice greeted.

"I saw that you'd called earlier. I apologize for missing it, but we had a small situation," she said.

"What kind of small situation?" he asked.

"Officer Kalakaua was accosted earlier. By Frank Delano," she informed him. The man let out a sigh.

"Damn it. How did he get out without our knowing?" he asked, the fury apparent in his voice.

"Someone was definitely paid off, big time," she said. "And from the looks of it, someone with much more reach than Delano."

"Is Fryer looking into it?"

"If he isn't, he will be. Five-0 has made the decision to work hand in hand with him," Lori said.

"Peacefully?" It was a valid question.

"For all intents and purposes, I think so," she said. "As long as they're all straight with each other, it shouldn't be a rehash of the undercover operation. And as long as Fryer keeps his mouth shut about trying to acquire Kalakaua."

"Do you think it would be a good decision to transfer her?" he asked after a moment. Lori hesitated. To be honest, she didn't know Kono well. She hadn't wanted to know Kono for a multitude of reasons. But… the few times she'd worked with the woman, she'd been more than impressed with her abilities and grace under fire. And Lori knew that she made the rest of Five-0 that much better.

"No, sir. I don't think that an order of that kind is necessary. Five-0 has a good dynamic that will only get better. And should the time ever come that Kono makes the leap herself, then it would be more organic. Less likely to cause waves. Steve would be less likely to snap his tether," she said honestly. There was a heavy silence, and she winced when she realized she'd used a first name. Perhaps Chin had been right in that she was broadcasting her feelings louder than she'd realized.

"McGarrett… how is he handling this newest mess?" the governor asked. "I haven't seen any complaints or unusual write-ups come across my desk yet, so I'm assuming things are manageable."

"Yes, sir. There are some promising leads, but it does seem like it could end up being a bigger problem than just some breaking and entering. Or small time organization workings, for that matter," she told him.

"Damn. That's exactly what I didn't want to hear."

"Also," she started, hesitating only slightly as she wasn't sure where the line of trust would be breached. "Joe White is back in the picture."

"Joe White. As in the man who ran off with Hiro Noshimuri," he muttered.

"Correct. He's back, but he lost Noshimuri," she said. The governor let out a harsh breath.

"I could give the order to have that man arrested," he said angrily. There was another heavy silence as he processed the new information. "Watch him closely, Lori. I have sources that can try to pinpoint where exactly he went and where he could have lost Noshimuri. But until then, we don't need him going off and pissing of an international cartel by conducting an unsanctioned manhunt and causing all sorts of hell."

"I think you'll be working parallel to Five-0, sir. St… er… Commander McGarrett wants to find Noshimuri as well," Lori said.

"Alright. Well, just keep me informed, as usual. If you get uncomfortable with anything, let me know," he told her.

"Will do, sir."

"And Lori?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I strongly advise against getting too attached to anyone in particular at Five-0. You're a good officer and do Five-0 credit, but you are working for me. I don't want to have to remove you on account of you being compromised. I need your unbiased observation," he said. She closed her eyes in disappointment at being caught out.

 _Shit_.

"Of course, sir."

"Good."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

At 10:08pm, the officers stationed outside the Noshimuri compound saw and photographed a red Chevrolet Cruze drive in.

At 12:24am, the officers stationed outside the Noshimuri compound saw and photographed a red Chevrolet Cruze drive out.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, Steve was getting ready to go in to work when his phone pinged a text message alert.

_Sorry, Boss. Going to be in later this afternoon. Fryer wanted to chat this morning. – Kono_

He frowned.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

To be continued…


	12. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Twelve

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Kelly Residence_

Chin sat at his breakfast table with his laptop. He'd been there since sunrise. It wasn't something he normally did, and when Malia sat down next to him with his usual cup of coffee, she raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's not like you to bring work home with you," she commented with a teasing smile. Chin chuckled as he reached for the steaming mug gratefully.

"I know. I'm sorry. You didn't marry me to stare at me over a computer screen at home," he said back with a smile of his own.

"Well, I certainly did marry you to stare at you though, don't you think differently," she said with a wink, swiping his coffee mug before he set it down to steal a small sip for herself. "Tough case?"

"Tough, yes. And complicated. I think we stumbled upon something big here," he said with a sigh. "There are too many layers at work."

Malia stood up and went to massage his shoulders from behind him. "I'm guessing this is where the job description of dangerous becomes more than just a scary word…" Chin reached up and squeezed her hand.

"I'm sorry…" he said, knowing full well that he was worrying her. She squeezed his hand back, interlocking their fingers.

"Oh, I knew what I was getting into with you," she said. "And I love you  _more_  for it."

"I love you," he told her with a smile.

"Just be careful. That's all I can ask," she said.

"Always," he told her. Then he looked at the clock. "Are you going to be late?"

"No. My first appointment had to re-schedule until late this afternoon. So, I will likely be home a bit later. But, I should go finish up some patient notes before the day really gets started," she said. Chin nodded as he pulled her down for a lingering kiss.

"Go. Save people," he said against her lips. She chuckled, running a loving hand over his cheek.

"You go do the same," she told him, going to pick up her purse and keys. "I'll see you back here later."

"Count on it," he grinned.

He sighed to himself after she'd left as he stared at the computer screen in front of him. Knowing Mr. Lawrence had lied was one thing. Finding out what he was lying about was another story. Chin had found himself down the organizational ownership rabbit hole and was now just making his way to the head of the corporate beast. He was pretty sure he was almost there, and knowing that he would likely get more help at the office, he shut his computer down and packed up for the trip into headquarters.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Williams Residence_

The knock at the door was a surprise to Danny as he was finishing his breakfast. His only constant visitor, especially of the surprise variety, was Steve. And the man just usually walked in like he owned the place. So, Danny went to the door warily for a moment, until he saw the back of a braided ponytail waiting at the door. He grinned as he opened the door.

"This is a surprise, Monkey," he said as his daughter turned and greeted him with an enthusiastic hug. He squeezed her back before looking up and catching eyes with his ex-wife.

"She wanted to stop by before school to give you a ticket to her school recital," Rachel said in way of explanation. Danny nodded as he stepped back. Grace handed him an envelope with a grin.

"Hold on, there're four tickets in here," Danny noted. His daughter just nodded happily.

"Yup! You have to bring Uncle Steve, and Chin and Kono," she said. Danny looked to Rachel, who looked surprised at the addition. Danny chuckled as he looked back to his daughter.

"You, my darling, sweet, brilliant daughter… are going to have a cheering section," he said with a wink.

"Well, duh… that's why I wanted you all there," Grace said with a roll of her eyes, only to burst out giggling when Danny wrapped her up in a bear hug.

"Duh, she says… duuuuuh," he teased her back. He calmed and set them both right again. "We'll be there. I can speak for the rest when I say there's nowhere else we'd rather be." Grace grinned.

"Cool."

"Grace, we're going to be late," her mother reminded. Grace pouted, but turned to go.

"Love you, Danno," she called. Danny smiled.

"Love you too, Monkey. Be brilliant and make all the other kids jealous of your big brain," he said. Grace giggled.

"If you looked at the tickets, Daniel, you'll see it is next Wednesday evening. Don't make promises you can't keep," Rachel told him when Grace had went out the door. Danny rolled her eyes.

"I didn't. I'm not Stan," he told her with a mock smile. She gave him a look.

"I guess we'll see," she said before closing the door behind her. Danny just shook his head.

"Some things never change," he said to the empty apartment before going to find his tie for the day.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_McGarrett Residence_

When Steve made his way downstairs, Catherine had made coffee and she was already in her fatigues, her bags waiting at the door. Despite their conversation last night, they both knew it would be foolish of them to part anything other than friends. Not after the years they'd spent in and out of each other's lives.

"Good morning," her voice greeted, almost formally. It wasn't their usual morning greeting and it felt a bit odd. He supposed that it would feel forced for a while as they adjusted to the new terrain.

"Morning," he said back, clipping his badge to his belt. She watched him over her coffee mug.

"You seem a bit upset," she commented. Steve let himself relax a bit as he poured himself a cup as well.

"Nah. I'm fine. Just dealing with… an annoyance," he said. "I'm not a fan of the officer Kono has to talk to this morning. The man has caused enough waves in the past, and he's the type of guy to keep making them. I can't imagine that he's not going to cause a few today."

"Like you're not used to waves," Catherine said with a smirk. He shrugged.

"Not a fan of his kind. They're usually to his benefit and strike a little too close to home," he admitted, sipping at the hot liquid.

"Is this the guy that had Kono go undercover for him?" she asked, remembering Steve's anger at that whole situation.

"Yeah," was all he said.

"I thought that was all squared away. Why would Kono be talking to him again? Especially after everything he put her through?" she was curious.

"Because of our current case. They…  _overlap_. Kono's expertise in that particular area is kind of invaluable. And in working with Fryer, well… not only has she done it before but she's likely the only one of us that  _doesn't_  want to actually strangle the bastard," he said, shaking his head. He still didn't understand that. He would never understand how Kono could tolerate the man who threatened to take her badge and used her ruthlessly so she could get it back again. But then again, she was much better at diplomacy than either he or Danny. Sometimes even better than Chin. He let the silence fall for a moment, and when he looked over at Catherine, she was watching him over the rim of her coffee mug. She smiled when she realized she was caught out.

"You know you get a look on your face when it comes to her," she noted. Steve looked over at Catherine, startled. He didn't even have to ask who  _her_  was.

"What?"

"You do. It's hard to explain, but your demeanor is different than when you're talking about Danny, or anyone else." Silence fell again. He wanted to say something, but there was nothing he could do to refute it.

"I didn't meant to startle you with that," Catherine said, her head tilted as she observed his inability to reply.

"You didn't, I am just…"

"… trying to put that mask of objectivity back in place?" she asked with a small smile. She reached out and put a hand on his arm. "Maybe that's what you need to stop doing, Steve. You've tucked yourself into this shell where you try to be as objective and unemotional as you can be…" Steve let out a snort of a laugh.

"I've got a partner who says I'm the least objective person on the planet," he said.

"Single-minded in certain aspects, sure," Catherine agreed with another smile, thinking of some of Danny's favorite complaints. She shook her head. "Anyway, I didn't mean to drop a loaded subject at your feet. I've got to get going. I have to report to the  _Enterprise_  in an hour. I just…"

"I know, Cath. I know," he said. He leaned over and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. "Safe travels, okay? And… you know you can always call me if you need something."

She nodded.

"I know that. Same for you. Don't be a stranger, okay?" she said, a hand running affectionately over his cheek. He nodded back.

"The same said for you," he told her with a smile. Catherine gave him a smile, albeit a bittersweet one, before she picked up her bags and turned for the door.

"Aloha, Steve."

"Aloha, Cath."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Steve called Joe's phone as he walked into headquarters, hoping to hear anything from the man, but it predictably went to voicemail. With a sigh he pocketed the phone and opened the door into Five-0.

"Danny?" he called.

"Yo," the other man responded from his office.

"Have you heard from Joe at all?" he asked, stopping at the other man's door. Danny looked up to look at his partner.

"Well good morning to you, too, Steve. Yes, I had a lovely evening last night and am so very glad to be here this morning," he said sarcastically. Knowing the other man wasn't going to respond, Danny sat back in his chair. "And to answer your question, no, I have not heard from Joe since he ran out of here last night like a bloodhound after… well, you know…  _blood_."

"Did he say where he was going?" Steve asked with a frown. Danny frowned as well, shaking his head.

"No, he didn't. Just said he had a possible lead that he wanted to check up on, that he needed to do it alone because of a skittish contact, and… voila! A magical, vanishing Joe White," the blond said.

"Damn it," Steve said, running a hand over his face. Danny watched his friend closely.

"What are the chances he's in the wind again?" he asked. Steve let out a sardonic chuckle.

"Could be 100 percent for all I know," he answered. "Chin in?" Danny stood and came around his desk.

"Yeah, he said he had some information. Lori is with him, helping on digging out some more. He said to go get him when you were in," he said. "Kono here too?"

"No, she sent me a message and went to meet with Fryer. He called her in early," Steve told him as they made their way to Chin's office where the man in question was parked behind his computer.

"Danny said you've got something?" Steve asked. Chin looked around.

"Kono?"

"Fryer." Everyone in the room made a face at that, but when Chin nodded, it was a subject left alone.

"Well, Lori and I went and visited the Lawrences last night. They are the owners of the small, family-run travel agency. According to them, nothing suspicious has gone on, they fully trust their employees, and all the other expected reactions from seemingly unknowing bystanders…" he said before getting up and leading the group out to the smart table.

"Why am I sensing there is more to this story?" Danny asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Because there is. I ran a background on Travis Lawrence last night. He told me this story about how the agency's server had been hacked and they'd had a service come in to repair the damage and upgrade their system. Well, there had been only one IT service listed in their company's bank records in the last month. So I called them. They had no record of such a service listed for the agency," Chin said, pulling up the financials to show them.

"So they were hacked, but there was no resolution to it? That seems highly suspicious," Lori commented. Chin nodded.

"That's why I did some digging into Travis Lawrence's business history. Long story short, he's got a long list of failures with some fairly obvious investors. His only successful business so far has been this travel agency, of which he is a 50 percent owner with his wife. There was a business on the past failure list that had a different pattern of investment, so I followed that trail," Chin said, pulling up the records for that particular business.

"What's the connection?" Steve asked. Chin shook his head.

"I'm not entirely sure yet. I haven't made it to the top of the money chain. But I've got some of the forensic accountants on that. I have a suspicion the money trail is going to be where we will find that connection," he said. Steve nodded.

"Alright. Good start. What about Mrs. Lawrence?" he asked. Lori shook her head.

"After Chin came in with his information, I did a background check on her. Everything checks out. No priors, no suspicious activity, no prior history in business ownership. She looks clean from here," she said. "I also checked into retrieving any security footage from the agency for the past few months. Mrs. Lawrence was more than happy to offer it, so she put the call into their security firm. It should be here soon. If there is a connection, I figure we could run into familiar faces if we look through it."

"Alright. Good idea. Chin, you may want to get a listing of all the consulting agents' appointment calendars. There could be a pattern in that, especially if their server was compromised," Steve said. He then looked to Danny. "Have we gotten anything on Hiro? Or Wo Fat?"

"We've got some eyes on the last location that Hiro had been seen at. And we also have eyes on the higher ups of Yakuza, or at least the best we could manage from this vantage point. It's highly likely they've got Hiro in a safe house somewhere, so I've talked with a contact there that is going to do some legwork to find out where some of those safe houses are located," Danny said.

"Okay," Steve said. "It's more than we had yesterday. Kono and I got a name last night of the other John Doe. It looks to be Randal Cortez. I'll do some digging into him. He was apparently a member of Noshimuri's staff the night he'd taken Kono to dinner, which was a private event." Lori's eyes went wide.

"Noshimuri rented out Nobu? That's not exactly a small thing for a one on one dinner," she said.

"What do you mean?" Chin asked, leaning on the smart table. Lori shook her head.

"I can only conjecture at this point, but it seems to me a bit showy for not knowing each other long," she said. Danny frowned.

"He seems like the type of guy who would show off a bit to a new girl," he noted with a shrug.

"But does Kono strike you as the type to be impressed by that sort of stuff?" she asked. All three men shook their heads. "Not hard to figure out, I would think. So it's possible he was showing  _her_  off…"

"To or for whom?" Chin asked. "With her connections to HPD and Five-0, I don't think that would be considered too smart. Especially with the Yakuza eyes on him."

"But he hasn't been too secretive in their seeing each other, either," Steve commented as he thought over the pictures Chin had. "Remember, you had them tailed. Easily."

"Damn," Danny commented. "So now we're thinking Adam's including Kono is some sort of business showmanship?  _That_  won't ruffle any feathers anywhere…" Suddenly, that bad feeling Steve had had when Chin had first come to him was back again. Regardless of what Kono really felt about Adam Noshimuri, it was becoming more and more clear that Adam had bigger plans for her.

"I've really got to go do some digging into this Cortez character then. He may be the piece to that particular puzzle we're missing," Steve said, just as the door to the office opened. A uniformed man walked in with a clipboard and small black carrying case.

"I have a delivery for Lori Weston? Renee Lawrence asked that I drop these off for you," the man said. Steve smiled.

"Looks like you've got some tapes to look through. Have fun with that," he told them with a quick wave as he went to his office to begin his own search. He smiled briefly at the groans before sitting down to this own computer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hours later found Chin, Danny, Lori,  _and_ Steve looking through the final few tapes of the surveillance footage from the travel agency. The quiet atmosphere in the case room was disturbed as the door to the office opened.

"Ah, the Five-0 hard at work. And here I forgot my popcorn," Vince Fryer's voice said from behind them. They turned to look at him.

"Captain Fryer," Steve greeted. "What are you doing here?" The other man smirked.

"You mean other than the pleasure of your sparkling company?" he asked sarcastically. "I'm looking for Kono. She hasn't been answering her phone all day."

"What for?" Danny asked with a frown, looking at his watch and noting that it was already late afternoon. Time flies when watching scintillating video. "What Earth-shattering news could you possibly have for her now that you didn't tell her this morning?"

"This morning?" Fryer frowned. "I never saw Kono this morning…" The group all looked at each other for a startled moment before they all stood up and Chin quickly swiped the video footage off of the monitor. His fingers flew as he keyed in Kono's cell phone number. Once it connected, the phone rang and rang.

"Ping the GPS on her car," Steve ordered, his hands gripping the table tightly as they all listened to the continued ring. He pulled out his cell phone and opened up the texting application to the message she'd sent him that morning.  _Sorry, Boss…_ Those were  _her_  words, not something generic… And there was nothing there to tip him off to something gone awry.

"Her car is at her house," Chin said, frowning, confused.

"Call Duke," Steve told Lori. "Get a unit to her place ASAP." Lori nodded as she made the call. But they all knew she wasn't likely to be there.

"What about her phone, Chin?" Steve asked. Chin had already been trying that, but he frowned as he looked at the data.

"No accurate location. It's bouncing all over the place," he reported.

"What's going on, McGarrett?" Fryer asked, hands on his hips.

"Delano is out of Halawa. He accosted Kono at a local hangout yesterday and then disappeared," Steve gritted out. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Fryer let out a breath.

"And I'm guessing she was going to come talk to me about it this morning, hence Boy Wonder's reference earlier," he connected the dots. Steve held out his phone for Fryer to see.

"We'd planned on having her visit you today. She said you'd called her in this morning," he said. Fryer shook his head.

"No. I hadn't heard from her at all. The reason I'm here now is because I just got word myself that Delano had escaped. They'd caught his imposter at roll call this morning because he'd been involved in a fight," the man said. There was a heavy silence as Steve, Chin and Danny all looked at each other.

"Delano's got her," Steve concluded.

"We don't know that, McGarrett. He's had some of the Governor's men on the lookout for him since last night," Fryer said, with a glance at Lori who was on the phone yet. Steve noted the other man's pointed alert, but shook his head.

"Yesterday was a taunt. He was showing us he was connected, he was showing us he knew how to get to us," he said.  _And he'd taken Kono's phone_. They'd gotten her a replacement, but that didn't mean Delano couldn't use her old one since it was still functioning, with all of her contacts. Lori stepped next to him, calling his attention.

"Duke has a unit on its way. But I also spoke with the surveillance team we have on Noshimuri's house. They saw Kono arrive at Noshimuri's last night. But they also saw her drive out at 12:24pm," Lori told him. Steve ran a hand over his face.

"Do they have photos? I want them to send all the photos they took before, during and immediately after that time," he said. Lori nodded as she picked up her cell phone again.

"Damn it," Steve growled. "He's hours ahead of us."

"If yesterday was a taunt, McGarrett, he will taunt again," Fryer told him. "He won't be able to resist it, to be honest. The man's nothing if not arrogant and a show-off."

"Do you have teams out looking for him now?" Steve asked. Fryer nodded.

"Yeah. I've sent two different teams out to where Frank liked to lay low before. I doubt he's there, especially now with a hostage, but it's worth the try. Otherwise, I have another team at Halawa working to figure out how he got out and where he went. It's likely someone was paid for that to happen, so we need to weed that out," he said. Steve nodded.

"Alright, but keep us in the loop. We'll do the same," he said.

"Copy that," Fryer said before leaving.

"Steve," Chin's voice cut into his whirling thoughts. He turned to the other man.

"Yeah."

"I have the pictures from the surveillance team," he said. Steve nodded.

"Put them up on the screen." Chin did just that. The first series were of Kono's car pulling into the driveway. They could see her shadowy figure emerge from the car briefly before a slightly better photo pulled up of her profile. It was definitely her. Chin pulled up the photos from the time she left. There were no photos of her getting into the car, and only two photos of the car itself as it pulled out.

"Stop there, Chin. Pull in closer on the driver…" Steve said, watching closely as Chin did as he was instructed.

"Whoa," Danny said as he observed the shadowed figure of the driver. They couldn't see the head, but could see the rest. "Unless Kono ate about 10 cakes in that house before she left, I'm going to have to say that's not Kono." The rest of the group had to agree since the person sitting in the driver's seat was easily about twice the size of their teammate. And that was being generous.

"Shit," Steve said, the fear he'd felt before sitting heavier in his chest. "She never left that house…" He looked over to Chin, whose face was as still as stone.

"Noshimuri or Delano?" Danny asked.

"Or both," Chin said.

Steve took a breath and turned to go into his office. His brain was short-circuiting as he realized he should have insisted on being her back-up last night and parked right next to the surveillance team. He would have known what to look for, and made sure she'd made it back home okay. The surveillance team wouldn't have known.

But he also knew that he'd had no clue as to what her plan was. Or if she would have ended up leaving Noshimuri's at all. That conversation on trust… he couldn't have backed out on that as the words were still fresh. It all bordered too close on personal that he couldn't justify infringing on her privacy that way. Of course, it had been a mistake, but one anyone would have made in that situation.

He angrily swiped at a pen, sending it flying off of his desk. Steve was even about ready to take a good healthy kick at the desk when his phone alerted him to a text. With a huff, he pulled up the message. And when he saw Kono's name on the alert, his heart started beating a bit quicker. Quickly opening it, he could only see a video file attachment and a link. When he opened the video, he suddenly wished he hadn't.

It was a video of Kono. And she was secured to a chair, unconscious, with duct tape covering her mouth. The wind from the ocean behind her lifted her hair enough from her face that he could see a new darkening bruise there and the old bruises Delano had left on her the day prior. Her chair was perched precariously at the edge of what appeared to be a speedboat, clearly broadcasting the kidnapper's plan for her. Then the video cut off abruptly. The GPS link mapped her at pier 58.

Panic renewed, he rushed out to the main room where he met an equally panicked-looking Danny and a flustered Chin.

"You got the video too," he said. They both nodded.

"We have to get them… now. As in right now," Danny said, his voice wavering. Steve frowned at his partner's statement and looked to Chin, who also frowned.

"Them?" Danny's nod was a bit frantic.

"Yeah. Grace and Rachel…" The blood in Steve's veins froze as the scope of this just changed monumentally.

"Chin, did you get that same video?" The other man's eyes were wide in realization.

"No. I have video of Malia, at our house. She's unconscious. There are gunmen on her," he said, his own voice tense. He and Danny looked at Steve.

"What video did you get?" Danny asked, when it was apparent Chin wasn't going to ask. There was a look in the man's eyes that said he probably already knew.

"Kono… She's on a boat." Chin's shoulders dropped as Steve confirmed he'd been right. Danny cursed loud and long.

"What are we going to do? We don't have enough manpower to pull off three separate ops," he said, running a worried hand through his disheveled hair. Steve frantically ran through all of the options in his head.

"Danny, call in SWAT. You'll need the extra backup, and they will keep a low profile. Run it as you need to. Chin, take Lori with you, and call in Duke and HPD. From what I can see, Kono's at the harbor. I'll call in Coast Guard and go from there," he said. It was the best he could do on short notice, Navy SEAL credentials notwithstanding.

"We weren't given a time limit. Or  _anything_ ," Chin noted softly. Steve nodded solemnly.

"I know. We need to do this quickly. Quicker than they'd even expect, so no time for panic… Do what you have to do, check in when you can. And they're gunning for us, that's the reason we got these to begin with, so be careful."

Suddenly, Danny was up and heading towards the door, his phone already at his ear. He didn't even pause to tell them where he was going. He didn't need to. And if things weren't so dire, Steve would be yelling after him to wait for his backup. But he knew better. Waiting wasn't on the list of possibilities. No ransom, no demands, no time limit. Just a taunt. Those were things that didn't bode well for them.

"Steve…" Chin paused in his own departure for only a second to look back at his boss. The conflict was there, all over Chin's face. Two women he loved more than life itself… and this is what it came down to. A devastating moment of choice and trust.

"Go. Get Malia. Now," Steve ordered, rushing to Chin and taking him by the shoulder to lead him out. Objectivity be damned. There was a reason he got that video and Chin got his. Whoever was behind this had been watching closely and knew the team's most vulnerable points. "I will get Kono. Make  _no_  mistake about that."

The older man paused at the door and looked at Steve again. He must have seen something that mirrored his own panic written all over the SEAL because he nodded tightly.

"I trust that you will, kaikaina," was all he said before nodding to Lori, who was already in her flak vest and holster, to follow him to the car.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

To be continued…


	13. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Thirteen

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Noshimuri Compound  
The Previous Evening_

_Kono pulled into the driveway wishing she hadn't agreed to meet with Adam. She just didn't have the energy to be both the professional and personal Kono that it would require of her. And she knew it would be required. Because as much as she liked Adam, or at least the Adam she knew, she was aware that this was becoming a very perilous game. And she disliked games, immensely. With a sigh, she got out of her car and went to the door to ring the intercom buzzer. Adam greeted her immediately and came to personally open the door._

_His smile always tended to disarm her, and this time was no different. She smiled back as she entered the lavish home. Adam was also a very tactile person, so little brushes against her skin, or a hand on her arm or back was not uncommon. She would try hard to not make that comparison with another person who tended to act similarly at times…_

" _I'm glad you could stop by," Adam told her as he led her into the living room, where he'd set up a small offering of fruits and the bottle of her favorite wine – chilled as promised. He went to pick up her glass and handed it to her._

" _I'm glad I could too," she told him with a smile, taking the piece of crystal that she was sure cost more than her bi-weekly paycheck. Kono let her gaze float around the room. She was never comfortable in these excessive lifestyles and normally wouldn't be attracted to men who lived them. But Adam… as much as he was an unofficial mark to begin with, he'd been down-to-earth enough to peak her interest. And he hadn't disappointed. She took a sip of the wine, letting the tart sweetness roll over her tongue._

" _So," Adam said as he stepped closer and let his hands roam over her shoulders. "How was your day?"_

_She smiled. "Only if you tell me about yours first…" It was then that the room started to get a bit fuzzy. Adam took the wine glass from her with a concerned frown._

" _Are you okay?" he asked. Kono nodded._

" _Yeah, I think so…" But she wasn't as she reached out to grab his shirt to keep from gracelessly tipping over. With a shaky eye, she watched Adam set the wine glass down carefully while still keeping a grip on her arm._

" _That was a quick reaction," Adam noted to someone standing behind her. With a frown, she tilted her head, making the room spin yet again. But as her eyes focused for a second, she recognized the person standing there._

" _You!" she spat with all the venom she could muster. The man smiled._

" _Me." Then he looked to Adam again. "Have her car taken back to her place. It should throw them off when they start to miss her. And make sure she checks in with her team in the morning, that will give us more time…"_

_She felt Adam lay her down gently on the couch, his dark gaze apologetic. And then her world went black._

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Edwards Residence_

He broke more speed limits that he cared to admit to, and that he would  _never_ admit to Steve. The thought that his daughter was being held by people with  _guns_  really did bring out that part of him that recognized that Steve's "Get Things Done" brand of anarchy had its appeal… What he wouldn't give for a shark cage right about now. But then again, a cage would have been too generous. He'd just go for the sharks. Period. Rather than dwell on where that likely put him on the McGarrett Scale of Insanity, he focused on what needed to be done.

Danny had recognized the room from the video that Grace and Rachel had been in as the living room at Rachel and Stan's house. So by the time he pulled into the neighborhood, a SWAT van was waiting for him a few blocks away. When he leaped out of the Camaro, one of the sergeants was waiting for him.

"What have you got so far?" Danny asked impatiently.

"We did a silent approach as we arrived, not knowing what kind of lookout system they had going," the man said. "We had nothing outside of a block radius, with one kidnapper canvassing every so often. We had a sniper sneak into a neighboring property across the street through the back and he is now set up to see inside the house."

"I want to see," Danny said.

"Yes sir, follow me," the sergeant said. The two made their way through the twists and turns of the adjacent backyards to get them to where the team's sharpshooter was waiting. Danny was handed a scope and he immediately started searching the house.

Where was Grace? His eyes frantically searched the area through the windows.

"We've got heat signatures on one of our sensors. I see five people in the middle of the house. Four larger people, likely men. And one smaller, likely your ex-wife," the sniper lead told him.

"No others?"

"No, sir. I am not seeing anything resembling a child. But it could be she outside our vantage point," he said. Danny let out a breath as a though took root in his brain.

"Alright. I'm going to try to sneak around the side of the house. There's a small study at the back end of the house. If anything, I can get in that way quietly," he said. "I want constant locations of the kidnappers. I won't be able to make it inside without it. Even if you lose sight of any of them, that will help me."

"Copy that," the man said with a quick nod. Danny nodded back before heading back outside. The sergeant keeping pace next to him handed him an earpiece.

"I want someone covering me as I head in. And I want a location of the lookout whenever possible. I'll head in alone, any more than that and we're taking too big of a risk. When I get my daughter and Rachel secure, I want a full breach to take these sons of bitches down," Danny told them. The man next to him nodded.

"Let us know when you have them," he said back.

"Alright, there is a perimeter fence along the back, but there is heavy brush covering it that runs the whole perimeter as well. I'll try to get to the back yard through there. With the group in the house, the security system should be disengaged. Once I'm in, she's my priority. I would assume she's somewhere nearby Rachel. If not, I'll have to do a search," Danny informed. He nodded to the man who was to be his backup.

"I want you positioned outside in the brush. It should give you a view of the house the guys out front don't have. If you have to take a shot, do it, but warn me first," he said.

"Gotcha," the shooter said. The two men carefully picked their way through two of the neighboring yards, coming to the fence that separated the properties.

"I'm going to try to send Grace out this way, when you meet her, tell her she has banana breath… she'll know you're safe. My ex-wife knows it as well, just tell her that and she'll go with you," he said. They quickly got an all clear and both went over the fence as quietly as they could.

"You're clear, but you'd better hurry," the SWAT man said. Danny nodded before he darted out into the yard, sprinting to the house to take cover against it. He creeped down the edge of the structure to find where the window leading into the study was located. Thankfully, the window was a sliding window. He'd been to enough break-ins to know how it worked sometimes… It took a few minutes of work, but he pried one part of the window away from the other part enough that he could bust the lock and shove the window open as wide as he could. Anything to avoid breaking the glass and alerting any sort of attention… Keeping a close eye on the door and the next available cover, Danny pushed himself up and through the window using every bit of strength he could to lighten any impact.

Once he was in the study, he quickly looked around to see if there was anything he could use. There wasn't anything, nor was there anything he could try to McGyver into being useful either. Stan apparently kept things minimal. With a frustrated huff, he went to the closed door and cracked it open. From his position, he had a vantage point to see the end of the hallway, where a small half-bathroom was located.

He saw one man lead Grace out of the kitchen area and shove her none-to-gently in the direction of the small hallway. Danny smiled to himself as he ducked back. This doofus made a huge mistake… he was taking his daughter to the bathroom and with only one guard. Danny wasn't about to let that opportunity slip by him. If he'd learned anything from that crazy SEAL he called a partner it was to never underestimate a small opening… and to use it as stealthily as possible. Danny knew enough about Rachel's house to do that right.

He had to grit his teeth as he saw the thug shove his daughter into the bathroom and told her to be quick. To her credit, Grace just went her way without much panic. The man kept the door open a crack in order to monitor, but otherwise left her to her own. Danny slipped out of the study after checking the other direction and silently made his way towards the kidnapper, who thankfully had his back to him – otherwise this would have been all for nothing. And in those few tense seconds, Danny was entirely grateful for Steve's tutelage in sleeper holds one day when the action was slow. He'd always been good at picking things up, as he demonstrated with only a few seconds of intense struggle. As he set the man down as gently as he could, he quickly pat the man down and relieved him of his gun at the back of his pants, and surprisingly, his daughter's cell phone, before stepping closer to the bathroom door.

"Monkey?" he whispered. His daughter was at the door in a second.

"Danno!" she whispered back, opening the door and letting him inside. Danny quickly looked her over and she didn't seem to be hurt. She was only hampered by having her hands tied together in front of her. He quickly found something to try to cut the zip tie with and gently took her hands once they were free.

"Now, you need to go out the window as quiet as you can and to those bushes along the backyard. Follow those around out towards the street, be careful not to be seen, okay? Go as far as you can, there is a good guy waiting there, but be careful and use the safe word. Keep your phone on you and I will call you when it is safe. But if you need to, you run, baby. You run hard and as fast as you can and hide. Okay?" he said. His daughter looked at him, red-eyed and tear tracked cheeks.

"What about you, Danno?" she asked softly. He ran a hand over her face.

"I will be behind you. But I need to get your mom. And I need to get the bad guys, okay?" he asked with a teary smile.

"Okay. I won't let you down, Danno," she told him. Danny swallowed hard. His daughter was the best of him and Rachel. When he let go of her hands, her arms immediately wrapped around his neck in a fierce hug. He squeezed her back.

"I love you. I know this is scary. And you never let me down, you never will, sweetie. Now, time to go out the window," he said, tucking her phone firmly in her pocket. He opened the bathroom window and guided her through it, lifting her as gently as possible to the ground. When she was securely outside, she grabbed his hand one final time.

"I love you, Dad," she said. Then she quickly ran for the edge of the property as directed and into the darkness the vegetation provided. Danny held his breath, gun aloft, waiting for any sound of alert. When none came, he made his way to the door. He could hear the three men talking in the living room and could only hope that SWAT could find their positions. A quick alert over the com to the SWAT lead let them know his daughter was safely away. They confirmed her exit of the property. Danny quickly made his way down the hallway towards the living room. He carefully peeked around the corner and could spot the back of Rachel's head from where she sat on the sofa. There was one man standing directly next to her, gun trained at her head. The others milled about the room, eyes always catching on the windows.

"Where are the goddamn cops?" one of the gunmen growled. "They should be here by now. Has Ollie seen anything?"

"No, he hasn't called anything…" came the reply.

"Where's Eddie? What's holding him up with the runt?"

"I have one suspect down, they're missing him now. If you can make a safe breach, do it. I have the gunman on Rachel covered for now," Danny ordered as he stepped back to make the alert so they didn't hear him. He then went back to his position, aiming at the man who held his wife where she was seated. There was a quick "copy" in his ear and it didn't take long after that. Danny heard the bursting of a window before he saw it and the rush of men and sharp retorts of automatic weapons filled the room. He fired quickly at Rachel's captor, hitting him in the shoulder. He closed his eyes as he heard Rachel let out a scream. A few long, grueling seconds later, he heard the all clear. It had all been a blur…

"Five subjects down," one of the officers called out.

"Five?" Danny asked, spinning to do another count. He saw two officers hauling the man he'd incapacitated in the hallway out.

"We missed one on the perimeter and got him on our way in," the SWAT man said.

"He was outside?" Danny asked, reaching for his phone in a panic. He dialed his number 1 speed dial without even waiting for an answer from the other man.

"Danno?" came the shaky, whispering answer. Danny let out a breath.

"Are you safe?" he asked.

"Yes. I found an officer, he told me your name and the safe word. Are you safe?" she asked. Danny smiled. And he looked over to check on a bruised, battered, but otherwise okay Rachel as well.

"Yeah, baby, I'm safe. And so is your mom," he reassured. "Where are you?"

It wasn't until he had Grace safely in his arms again and he could see Rachel being checked out by the EMTs that he finally started to breath regularly again, the invisible vise around his chest loosening. He quickly sent a message to Steve and Chin, hoping that they had the same kind of outcome.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Kelly Residence_

Chin brought the car to a screeching halt about two blocks away from his house. He knew they, whoever "they" were, could possibly have eyes on the roads. He'd mentioned as much to dispatch as he pulled up.

"Lori…" he started. She gave him a glare, reading him easily.

"I know. Let's do this right and get her out of there," the blonde said with a hard look.

"Backup will be here in about 5 minutes," Chin told her as he went to the back of the car to grab his shotgun and extra rounds. Lori tightened her Kevlar and took the extra ammo magazines he handed to her.

"Copy that. But to get her out safely, we're going to need to do this with a plan," she noted. Chin nodded.

"It's my house, I know the area. We'll have to come in through the back. We'll also need to keep lookout for how sophisticated this is because that  _will_  change any plan we have," he relayed. "If we can, we need to get Malia out before we engage. So whatever happens, you need to be on top of that, okay?"

Lori opened her mouth to argue, but when he stared her down, she quickly nodded. As he moved to get in closer, she grabbed his arm, a thought striking her just as the first HPD marked vehicles arrived to their location sans lights.

"Chin… what if we use HPD as a distraction?" she asked. Chin frowned as he too stared at the HPD cars.

"What? How?"

"If they have eyes out, it may be detrimental to try to move in without being noticed. If HPD shows up, lights blaring and asking to talk to the kidnappers, it may cause enough of a distraction for us to get into the house and take them down with an element of surprise," she said. Chin thought about that for a moment, and he realized it would likely be a good plan. The only sure plan they had at the moment, anyway.

"They'll want to talk to you, after all this is a show for Five-0," Lori added. "If Duke and the team can stall long enough, tell them you're on your way…"

"It could be enough," Chin finished. She nodded. It took him a second to really process it, but then he nodded too. "Okay. Let's go talk to Duke. We need to make this quick…" The two called Duke to their location. When he arrived, the two filled him in on what they wanted to do. With him on board and ready to go relay the call, Chin and Lori started towards the rear of the Kelly residence.

"Once they show up lights flashing, we'll approach the house. The action should draw immediate attention," Chin told her. The blonde nodded.

"How are we getting in?" she asked. Chin smirked at her.

"The advantage of this being my house? I have a key…" he said. Lori actually chuckled.

"Makes the approach a little simpler," she noted. Their ears perked up as they suddenly heard the distinct wail of police sirens.

"Almost ready," he said, waiting for a few more seconds for HPD to close more distance. Then, with a quick nod, the two of them sprinted across the yard to where the back door. Chin tried the handle gently, but it was locked. He quickly pulled out his keys from his pocket and found the one that matched the lock on the door. Lori peeked in the window there for brief second.

"It looks clear," she whispered as Chin unlocked the door. He nodded.

"This is HPD!" The two of them could hear on a bullhorn from the front of the house. They stood at the ready at the back door. "We would like to talk to who is in charge. We want to resolve this without you harming those you may have captive…" That was their cue.

"They're likely upstairs. We just use this as a small basement area. Wouldn't be useful to them at all," he said. Lori nodded, following Chin into the area with her gun raised.

"From the video, she was located in the living room," he whispered to her. "We'll need to go up the stairs and the door there opens into a small breezeway outside the kitchen."

"Then what?" Lori asked.

"If we can get into that breezeway, the kitchen opens into the living room. But there is an island area and a small wall that could provide cover in order to get into position," he said. She nodded again, swallowing hard.

"We haven't heard anything from Duke saying how many kidnappers there are…" she noted.

"Which means if we need to shoot, we'll need to be quick and alert. That means you need to get your eyes on Malia as soon as we're upstairs," he told her.

"Copy that," she told him. With a nod, he started towards the stairs and began inching up them, careful of every little creak. Lori did the same. It was an excruciating couple of minutes as they made sure they weren't caught out immediately. But as they made it successfully to the top, Chin gripped the door handle gratefully. He listened for a moment, but didn't hear anything in the immediate vicinity. Taking a chance, he cracked the door for a view into the kitchen. It was empty, so he nodded for Lori to follow him as he crept through the door and into the breezeway. Chin quickly looked into the kitchen, which was also empty. He relayed that to Lori and then raised his gun.

As Chin peeked around the corner again, he got a better look at the living room. There were three armed men that he could see fully, all staring out the front window at HPD's flashing lights. One of them was on the phone, pacing slightly. There was another person he could see partially that was blocked by the wall separating the kitchen from the living room area. He flashed Lori four fingers to indicate what he saw. She nodded.

"If I don't speak to Lt. Kelly in two minutes," the kidnapper on the phone growled. "He will find a surprise waiting for him here in his living room…" With that the man hung up and threw the phone onto the coffee table, before turning to his colleague and discussing their next move with him. Chin looked over his shoulder at Lori and she nodded in understanding. They would need to make a move in less than two minutes. Chin indicated he would move along the wall and that Lori would need to duck down and run for the island. It would be the best vantage point for her to see where everyone was when any shooting started.

When Chin nodded to her, he watched closely to cover her as she silently made her way to position. Lori nodded to him, raising her gun, prepared to do the same for him as he swiftly moved around the corner and hugged the wall. From there, he could see Malia. She wasn't gagged, or secured to anything, but her hands were bound. She was sitting on the couch, one gun pointed directly at her as she kept her gaze meekly on the ground. It took a few seconds, but she finally looked up, as if sensing him. When her eyes caught on his, she did not move or react in any way. Chin lifted his gun and nodded to the men, then he motioned to the floor. Years of knowing each other could speak volumes through a look. Her only acknowledgement was a blink.

"We haven't heard from Kelly…" one of the gunman said.

"Well, he's got 30 seconds to give me a call," the leader said before looking over to Malia. "Or he'll regret leaving little wifey all on her own…" Chin looked to Lori and signaled he was going to make a move. Of course, it was more a McGarrett-approved move than she would probably anticipate…

Chin stepped into the doorway, causing Malia's eyes to snap up to him in alarm. "I don't think we're going to need phones…" The four men in the room all quickly aimed their guns at him, but before they could shoot, Chin took out the one closest to Malia… and she immediately hit the ground next to him to stay out of the firing. Lori popped up and took out one of the others. But the third man ran out the back, towards the breezeway that led to a porch. The leader himself dived for cover behind the wall leading into the front entryway. Chin quickly dived behind his wall as a return shot was made.

Lori nodded to him as she ran back to her cover at the kitchen island. She'd gotten the man who'd run out, which mean they only had the leader left to worry about. Chin peeked around the wall and saw Malia still on the floor, taking as much cover as she could. He peeked a little further and immediately ducked back as a shot was fired in his direction again. Lori gave him a quick nod to confirm she'd take aim herself and Chin readied his own follow-up. As Lori took her shot, the shooter's attention was on her and Chin took the opportunity. One shot to the shoulder caught the shooter by surprise as he turned to fire in Chin's direction again. This time a shot from Lori caught him in the other arm, dropping him. Chin charged, ready to kick out the gun, but once glance at his wife was enough of a distraction.

"Chin!" Malia cried as she stood quickly and rushed to push him out of the way of the gunman's last ditch aim. The shot went off just as Chin pulled at Malia to go down with him. His quick reaction allowed him to grasp onto her wrist as he fell… but he could still hear her yelp of distress. There was an answering retort of a gun and all was suddenly silent. Chin didn't feel anything of the fall; instead, he turned himself awkwardly to find where his wife had fallen next to him. He didn't even notice as HPD suddenly rushed into the house, securing the scene.

"Malia…" he called to her as she lay face down on the floor. He felt more than saw Lori rush to their side. The both of them turned Malia over to see red staining the carpet where she fell. Her eyes were closed, and Chin's heart was in his throat. Lori quickly cut through the bindings at Malia's wrists, allowing her arms to fall free.

"Malia," he called again, running a hand over her face. Lori checked the other woman over quickly.

"I think she hit her head, Chin. The bullet wound is a through and through on the arm," she assured him. Chin let out a breath as he took a second to realize that yes, his wife was breathing.

"The EMTs…"

"… are on their way in. I've got pressure on her wound. They'll be here in two seconds, Chin," Lori assured again, laying a hand on his shoulder. Chin just brushed Malia's hair away from her face.

"How bad?" he asked, not looking away from her.

"It doesn't look like it hit anything major. She'll have a couple of nice scars once they get her patched up. And I'm guessing a nice headache when she comes to," Lori told him, moving out of the way so that the emergency personnel could properly assess their patient. It took a second, but Chin followed her lead.

"She'll be fine, Chin," she said, watching the paramedics closely. After a long moment, Malia groaned, causing Chin to kneel down by her again and grasp her hand.

"Malia?" he asked. Her eyes took a second to focus and right themselves, but she looked over to where she'd heard his voice.

"Chin? Are you alright?" she asked, confused concern filling her face. Chin smiled, but shook his head.

"I'm fine, thanks to you. What were you thinking, putting yourself in danger like that?" he asked. Malia smiled back before wincing as her wound was prodded gently with gauze to staunch the blood.

"It wasn't anything you wouldn't have done for me," she said. The paramedics gently rolled her onto the backboard, but Chin never let go of her hand.

"Your wife should be fine, sir, but with a knock to the head and a loss of consciousness, we want to take her to the hospital for observation and to get her stitched up," the paramedic told him. Malia smiled and squeezed his hand as the concern on his face didn't lessen.

"Standard procedure, Lieutenant Kelly, try not to look too concerned," she teased.

"Okay, Doctor Kelly. Let's get you your free ride to the hospital. There are easier ways to do that, you know," he said back, swallowing the lump in his throat and finally allowing himself to feel the relief now coursing through his body. "I love you."

"I love you too, Chin," she said. Chin looked over to Lori as the paramedics lifted the backboard to put on the gurney.

"I'll ride with them," he told her. Lori nodded.

"I'll follow behind," she assured him.

When Chin was sitting in the back of the ambulance, hearing the steady beeping of his wife's heart on the monitor, he sent a message to Steve and Danny and waited to hear anything back… If anything happened to Kono… He closed his eyes. He would  _not_  think about that. He just couldn't.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Honolulu Harbor_

The drive to the harbor had been full of tense conversations with the Coast Guard liaison... and tense internal dialogues with himself to keep it together. The Coast Guard hadn't spotted any suspicious activity within the confines of the harbor, and had called alert to the patrolling boats to keep an eye out on suspicious activity out of pier 58. Steve had then arranged to be part of a patrol, knowing that wherever Kono was, it was now likely to be out on the water.

He'd just arrived at the Coast Guard station docks when his phone rang. Kono's number. And with the way the afternoon was going, he was pretty sure he could predict who was on the other end. He nodded to a waiting Lt. Welsh, from what his jacket said, who guided him to the nearby boat and braced himself as he connected the call.

"Ah, McGarrett. So glad we could finally chat," Frank Delano greeted.

"This is a chat?" Steve asked, jaw tight as his eyes scoured the area, looking for anything that would lead him to the son of a bitch. This was all taunting on Delano's part. Every single bit of it.

"Oh, no, not even remotely," came the slimy reply.

"What do you want?" Frank chuckled.

"So impatient. I'm guessing as to… why." There was a heavy pause and Steve could hear a distinctly feminine cry of pain. Steve struggled to keep his composure as Delano came back on the line. "This isn't a negotiation, McGarrett. And it's not about what  _you_  can give me. This is about what  _I_  can  _do_. And besides… I owe the little bitch," the hated voice continued to taunt. There was another cry of discomfort in the background.

Steve instinctively knew that time was running out. He needed to find the boat. This man was not wanting of anything but revenge. And that meant one thing. He was going to kill Kono, no matter what.

"You've proven what you can do, Delano. There's no reason to do  _this_ ," Steve pleaded, SEAL pride be damned. Delano just chuckled at the guarded desperation in the other man's voice.

"I have every damn reason. I simply don't forgive and forget like all you do-gooders. And, quite surprisingly might I add, I get the extra bonus of hearing you beg. A pretty good day for Frank Delano," he said. "It's great that she's finally woken up from her little cocktail, because now, she can see it coming. I'd wish you luck, McGarrett, but… you're already too late." With that, the man hung up the phone.

The panic that had gripped him now turned into a full, sirens-blaring terror as he stared at the cell phone in his hand. Quickly, and running on instinct, Steve shakily pressed a well-known speed dial. The wait felt like eons as the ring sounded in his ear.

"Catherine!" he shouted into phone when she picked up.

"Steve? What's wrong?" she asked, sensing his panic through the phone.

"I need to find a SAT location. And I need it two minutes ago. Shouldn't be too far out of Honolulu Harbor," he said as he started motioning to Lt. Werth to get the boat out onto the water as quickly as possible.

"What…"

"Number is 808-555-8842," he listed off, swallowing hard. He could hear Catherine's fingers flying over her keyboard.

"What's going on, Steve?" she asked quietly as she waited for the uplink to trace.

"The son of a bitch has got Kono and he's on the water," was all he said. Two and two clicking together, it was enough to effectively silence any other questions. His brain was automatically trying to think of a faster way to get what he needed when Catherine finally cleared her throat.

"Your timing is good. The last reading came thirty seconds ago from these coordinates," she started. Steve immediately rattled the coordinates to the lieutenant – the boat veered sharply left.

"Steve…" Catherine started, but she stopped. He could hear the rest of what she was going to say anyway.

"I'll let you know," he acknowledged before hanging up and gripping the side of the boat as Lt. Werth didn't skimp on the 'full throttle'. He could barely breathe with the thought that Kono was out there, waiting to die. The ocean… a person could just disappear forever in the ocean, never to be seen again. He closed his eyes and tried to calm the inner rage. This  _wasn't_  a good feeling… He remembered all too well feeling this before.

As the boat neared the location, he quickly stripped off his Kevlar and shirt and took off his shoes. One of the officers shouted something, but the other replied in a negative. What was said he would never be able to recall as he grabbed one of the masks from one of the coast guard officers.

"We'll follow you in and do a protocol search," the officer yelled over the speeding boat. The 'just in case' was left out of the statement, for obvious reasons. Steve wanted to yell back that they wouldn't need to, because they'd get there in time and everything would be okay. But the practical SEAL side of his brain kicked him to remind him that he didn't  _always_  save the day… and that he wouldn't always do so, even in such an important scenario. Steve knew the hard way that sometimes things just didn't turn out the way you wanted them to. It had taken a phone call with his father to figure that one out. He just hoped and fervently wished that this wasn't one of those days.

Suddenly, after years and years of training and living on the water… he felt seasick. He fought every urge to retch as the boat started to slow. Steve's eyes scoured the water for anything as they made their slowing approach, but… nothing. No boat, no Kono in line of sight. Just water ripples. And that thought made him feel even sicker. The boat came to a stop and bobbed for a moment as it righted itself to the lack of inertia and the lieutenant maneuvered them to the right spot.

"Where?" he asked the lieutenant.

"Considering what we saw and what we were given, we're at the exact location, Commander," he said. Steve nodded, barely paying attention to them and quickly put on the mask and grabbed a mini emergency air tank. The fading light of the coming sunset provided little insight to what lay beneath. He didn't pause to even look at the other two men preparing to go in as well. There was no time for tanks, and no time for hesitation as he dived right into the water. Every second counted… If the boat was gone, that meant if Kono was down here, and she wouldn't have much longer… if at all. She was every inch the 'water woman' her cousin claimed her to be, she knew water and she knew what to do while in it and what to do while in trouble. But that didn't mean the odds weren't stacked against her before going in.

The coolness of the water didn't even register as he got his bearings, the mask blurring only for a moment as the pressure changed. Steve continued to kick down quickly, hoping to find something – anything to indicate she was close. He paused. Each second felt like a minute he didn't have.

And then he felt it… it wasn't much, but enough of a disturbance of water below him to his left. Instinct propelled Steve to quick dive in that direction, his hand out in front him… it took three or four more heavy scissor kicks until he felt a brush of something distinctly  _not_  aquamarine. It was cloth. Another scissor kick down and he reached forward, further this time and gripped at whatever it was. He could feel it tear, so he reached further. This time, there was something solid behind it… and a struggle. Not even thinking, he grabbed ahold with a strong arm and immediately started kicking towards the surface.

The struggle in his arm continued, but it didn't matter to Steve at the moment… he could see the dark mass that was the boat waiting for them. Suddenly, his burden seemed lighter and he realized that the struggling had stopped.

Kono was now helping with her own arms and legs… As he continued their ascent, he guided her hand to where the spare air tank was tucked. She took it greedily… he knew she had to be to the point of no return.

When they finally broke through the surface, Steve took a deep breath to clear his horribly burning lungs and bobbed for a second in the gentle waves as oxygen cleared his brain. He tore off the goggles and turned to her. Kono's coughing turned into a slight wheeze, the air tank forgotten in lieu of fresh air and he reached out to guide her weak body towards the waiting boat. The swim felt like it took forever, even though it was only a couple hundred feet. Lt. Werth helped them to haul their exhausted bodies from the water as the other divers began to reappear.

Steve watched as the crew gently laid a blanket over Kono's shoulders, giving her the space needed to catch her breath. Red streaked her arms from where skin had rubbed off in her escape from her bindings. He could see multiple defensive wounds and bruises forming. Her limbs shook as she tried to hold herself up on her hands and knees. With a soft moan, she finally let gravity win and collapsed, curling into the fetal position. Steve reached out with heavy arms and gently pulled her up and against him as he sat back, leaning against the side of the boat. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her across his lap and held her close. They sat there for a few minutes on the floor of the boat clinging to the other, waiting for the adrenaline to stop pounding through them.

They'd been  _very_  lucky.  _Beyond_  lucky, even.

He could hear the crackle of the radio as the others on the boat called in their success, but he couldn't make out the words. All he could focus on was the heavy in and out breaths of the woman in his arms.

"Boss…" Kono croaked out after a minute. Steve shook his head.

"You call me 'boss' right now and I'll put you right back in that water," he said with no bite behind it at all. Understanding him as always, she rasped out a small chuckle that seemed to take monumental effort, the movement it caused hidden within the shake that had overtaken her.

"No you won't," she told him. Steve swallowed hard as he tightened the blanket around her shoulders. Another blanket was handed to him and he immediately wrapped it around her.

"No," he confirmed. "I won't."

He knew he needed to get up and figure out what was going on with Chin and Danny, be the leader he needed to be… but he couldn't move. If he let her go, he would start shaking. He could feel it. It had been too close of a call.

Scratch that. He  _was_  shaking. It wasn't just Kono. Miraculously, even more blankets appeared as the unobtrusive coast guard members watched over them and started the trek back to land. Cool hands on his cheeks caused Steve to open his eyes. He looked right into Kono's watery eyes.

_You got me…_

She didn't need to say anything for him to know. He gave her a tight nod, causing the corner of her lips to tilt up in a smile. She didn't let go of his cheeks as she leaned in and placed a quick, light kiss to the corner of his mouth. It wasn't much, but it felt like the world…

Steve reached up and caught the side of her neck, his thumb running over the shape of her jaw. His touch avoided the purpling bruise on one side, but his eyes caressed every inch of it. When his gaze found hers again, it really didn't need words at all…

_I got you…_

Once they hit dry land again, and took shaky steps off the boat, he demanded that she be checked out by the awaiting EMT staff as he conversed with Lt. Werth. The man told Steve that as they'd approached they'd seen a boat speed off and had a partial description of it. It was likely that boat was now out into the wider stretch of waters looking for another safe harbor to skip into. Or a private harbor. Lt. Werth said they had all official harbors on the island on alert as a boat that size couldn't make it any further out on an escape run. Steve ran a frustrated hand over his face as he stared out at the water.

"It's not like we don't know who we're after," a hoarse voice said from behind him. When he turned around, he saw Kono standing there, wrapped up tight in a too-large Coast Guard jacket to keep warm and a bottle of water clutched in her hand. He nodded but didn't say anything. He didn't trust himself to at the moment.

"And it's not like he doesn't have the whole island looking for him or keeping an eye out for him," she added, watching him as his shoulders slumped.

"I know. I just hate that there's nothing I can do right now," he told her. She nodded in agreement. The only one that was really known for their patience on their team was her usually unflappable cousin.

"Have you heard from Danny or Chin?" she asked, concern marring her brow. Steve nodded.

"Danny and SWAT took out the perps holding Rachel and Grace about 20 minutes ago. Everyone's okay. He's taking the girls to his place for now," he told her.

"And Chin?" she asked.

"He and Lori got Malia out. Minor injuries, so they're at the hospital right now. HPD took care of the rest. He just sent me the message," he told her, stepping forward and laying a hand on her shoulder. "I let him know you were okay. He wanted to be here…"

Kono smiled. "I know. He was where he was supposed to be…" Then she stepped forward and let her forehead rest on Steve's shoulder. "Thank you." His arms came around her without hesitation.

"Hospital?" he asked. Kono smiled as she looked up at him.

"Only to see Chin and Malia," she countered, knowing full well that he was asking a different question.

"You've been drugged, beaten, and very nearly drowned," he said his grip loosening only enough so they could both turn and walk towards his truck. His arm stayed firmly around her shoulders, and she didn't mind.

"The EMTs cleared me. Malia was  _shot_ ," she said back. He rolled his eyes.

"Only you would see that as something overwhelmingly  _worse_ ," he complained. Kono shook her head.

"No, not just me. I'm a part of Five-0. I'm pretty sure that's in the description of the job applicant requirements," she tried to joke. But he only shook his head. He could  _maybe_  see where Danny was just the slightest bit justified in his grumbling over Steve's methods and occasional invincible attitude. Because from this side of things, Steve was definitely grumbling too.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_The Queen's Medical Center_

As Chin was a fixture at the hospital for the night while Malia rested, it became obvious that there would also be three other occupied chairs in the waiting room with him for quite a while. It was a given that Kono would not leave her cousin's side, her head currently resting on Chin's shoulder as she dozed since she needed the rest herself. His hand engulfed one of hers, knowing full well that he'd come so close to losing her. The nearness helped calm them both as it always had throughout their lives.

Steve sat planted in the chair next to Kono, his relaxed position belying the fact that he was on high alert to anything going on around them. They'd been snuck up on once, caught on their heels. He'd be damned if it happened again. But more than anything, he was grateful that Kono was in a medical facility in some capacity for the night as being drugged, beaten and nearly drowned did qualify right up there with being shot, no matter what she said.

Danny was, of course, next to Steve. With Stan out of town, he'd sent Rachel and Grace back to his place with HPD sitting surveillance for the night. He'd arranged to meet up with them a little while later after they got settled and as relaxed as they could after everything. He'd even promised Grace pizza with pineapple… which he sincerely hoped would not become a trend. Tonight though, definitely a pass. For now, he was just glad the team made it through the day with minimal damage after impromptu ocean swims and close quarter gunfights… although they predictably looked like they could use a week off.

It had to be an interesting picture they made to anyone observing: Chin his usual calm self now that the most pressing of crises had passed, Kono pretty much oblivious to the world, Steve practically vibrating on a much higher frequency than Danny'd ever seen him – lord help them all when he crashed back down, and Danny… basically just thinking of all the places he wanted to take Grace on vacation – you know, pretty much anywhere that  _wasn't_  Hawaii.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

To be continued…


	14. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Fourteen

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Kono awoke, she realized two things… the sun was already well past risen and shining, and she was on a couch that was definitely not hers. She stretched quietly, wincing as all of her sore spots were jostled, but settled back to just stare at the view of the blue ocean beyond the sliding glass windows.

It looked different at this time of the day with the sun shining on it. Welcoming and warm… Quite the opposite of what last night's ocean embrace had felt like. That had felt so cold, desolate, and hopeless… something she'd never thought she'd feel in the water she knew so well. Even when she'd blown out her knee what seemed like a lifetime ago, the water had felt comforting through her pain.

With a sigh to shake off her thoughts, Kono sat up and rubbed gently at the white gauze that had been wrapped around her wrists where the skin had been rubbed off by her duct tape bindings. Throwing the blanket that had been placed over her sometime during the night over the back of the couch, she stood. As she took the first wobbly, dizzying step, Kono realized that perhaps yesterday had taken a bigger toll than she wanted to admit.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey…" a soft, deep voice from her left cautioned. "Careful there." She looked over to see Steve standing in the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. Kono frowned, remembering vaguely that she'd insisted on going home and letting Chin have some quiet moments with his wife… and the whole team had predictably resolved that she not be alone. So, she'd been bundled off in a haze with Steve, at his insistence.

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked with a smiling shake of her head. He just smiled back.

"Long enough to see you get a shaky start," he said back. "I was just coming in to check on you…" Kono let out a delicate snort of a laugh.

"No need to do that," she told him. But as she took another step, the world seemed to spin a bit, belying her words. Steve's ever-observant gaze caught that and he rushed over to grab her elbow, his other arm winding around her waist.

"Let's get you to the kitchen and get some food in you. That might help a bit," he said, gently guiding her in the direction of the other room. Kono shook her head.

"I'm fine. It's just that the world likes to tilt every so often," she grumbled good-naturedly. "I'd like to know what the hell they dosed me with…" She sat down as she rubbed at her temple with her fingers. Steve went to the refrigerator to pull out needed items for a simple breakfast.

"Can I ask what happened?" he asked gently, looking over at her quickly before going back to his task. Kono watched him, knowing that his air of casualness was just a cover for the inquisitive SEAL that lay underneath. And she'd worked with him long enough to cipher out the real question he was asking. She let out a breath, knowing that he would need to know eventually anyway.

"He put the drug in my favorite wine," she told him with a mirthless smile. She'd likely never drink that type of wine ever again after all of that… She'll stick to her reliable beer and take the caps off herself if need be. Steve stopped what he was doing at the counter and turned to look at her.

"Adam?" he asked for the actual confirmation, a furious frown on his face. She looked down at her hands.

"Yeah. I… I showed up and he had a glass of wine waiting for me, as promised. Asked me about my day… and then things went fuzzy for a moment, then black. I woke up on the boat with Delano in my face," she said, mortification seeping into her tone. Kono knew she was a better detective than that. And she knew full well that her instincts, if she hadn't been personally involved to some extent, would have been on high alert. When she looked up at Steve again, he was leaning back against the counter, a white knuckle grip on the edge.

"I should have been there," he growled. Kono shook her head as she stood and crossed to stand in front of him.

" _Not_  your fault. I'm here, I'm fine. We're all fine," she told him, reaching out to grip his forearm. It took a second, but he did eventually relax under her gaze. Then she nodded to the unbroken eggs and half-chopped vegetables. "… and if I'm not mistaken, I'd heard a rumor about breakfast. And could I  _maybe_  wheedle some coffee?"

Steve smiled as she'd intended with her mock pout before he reached up and gently gripped her shoulders to walk her backwards to her chair. Kono gave a huff of frustration but followed the directive and sat.

"No wheedling needed. Coffee's brewed and coming up," Steve told her before turning to pull out two mugs and poured some of the waiting coffee into them.

"Ummm, thanks for letting me stay. I didn't mean to be so much trouble," she commented, letting her fingers tap lightly on the table top. Steve gave her a quick disbelieving look over his shoulder.

"Trouble? You collapsed onto the couch once you got here and you didn't move again. I doubt you'd have even flinched at a tsunami siren," he chuckled, turning to hand her a mug. She smiled gratefully at him as he sipped at his coffee.

"I guess I was more worn out than I thought," she said. He didn't say anything, just stared at the bandages around her wrists for a moment before looking back to her face. His gaze was inscrutable, no doubt blaming himself again.

"I think that's to be expected," he said quietly, taking another sip of his coffee before setting it down and getting back to making some food for the two of them. It was quiet for a while as he worked, and he would look over at Kono every once in a while to see her enjoying the warm coffee. But when he started to take out plates to serve them, she finally asked the question that she had been tossing around in her mind.

"How did you find me?" she asked softly. He paused slightly before setting her plate down in front of her.

"Delano called me… to gloat. And I was able to get his last location," he told her. Of course there was more to the story than that, but he wanted to keep the explanation simple. She nodded, taking the silverware he offered her and set it down.

"I don't even remember hearing him talk to you. I keep going over and over it in my head…" she told him. "We were pretty far out… I can remember the ride back in to the harbor. I'm lucky you got to me. Very lucky. I was also lucky, I think, that they over-drugged me. When I went in that water…"

Steve reached out to take her hand in his, squeezing lightly in comfort. She looked over to him, continuing.

"It took a few moments for panic to set in. Then when I finally realized I couldn't do anything about getting to the surface, I could immediately feel the burn in my body - the panic and lack of oxygen. I hadn't even realized you'd gotten me, I could barely feel anything… all I could think was that I was going to die in the ocean…"

They let silence fall for a moment. It was tough for her to say those words, but she knew she had to say them. Steve watched her closely as she swallowed hard… then she shook her head as smiled at him, picked up her fork and gestured to the food.

"Eat, boss. It's going to be a long day," she said. Steve picked up his own fork and started digging in.

"You don't have to come in today. You should take the day," he said, covering for the question he itched to ask but knew she wouldn't appreciate. When she didn't answer, he looked up at her to see her watching him with an amused look.

"If you think I'm sitting this one out, you're crazier than I thought," she told him. Steve chuckled.

"I'm not crazy."

"Well, did you think I was going to sit home and knit a sweater or do a bit of cross-stitch?" she asked. Steve chuckled.

"No… but, you know… you could just stay here, rest up, go surfing, relax for a day on the beach…" It was something she said she'd enjoyed during her leave due to the IA investigation and it took him a second too long to realize why she went still. And when he did, he mentally cursed himself. Too soon yet to mention the water. He should have known better. "Look…"

"No, no, no," Kono cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I get what you're saying. That sounds like a lovely day,  _really_ , but I'm serious when I say I'm fine. And I need to figure out what's going on just as much as you all do right now."

Steve watched her for a long moment. He could see the internal torture in her eyes, even though she was trying to hide it for his sake. But, as always with her, he could also see her determination to not let it bother her or affect what needed to be done.

"Okay," he said finally. The smile she gave him was bright and genuine.

"Good choice, Boss," she said with a wink. He chuckled.

"Not really a choice. I'd rather have you with us, then sneaking around somewhere off-grid without backup," he said back knowingly. Kono gave him a mock affronted look.

"I would never…" she started until he actually let out a laugh.

"You  _would_. Don't even try to say something different," he said. Of course she would, she tended to think like him more often than not. Kono shrugged as she took a bite of eggs.

"I did just fine following Wo Fat without my badge," she countered.

"Not without some trouble. And you had Chin as unofficial backup," he reminded her. She shrugged again and was about to say something else when Steve's phone started ringing. Kono looked up at the clock. At this hour in the morning, it certainly wasn't going to be a social call. Steve apparently agreed as he let out a breath before connecting the call.

"McGarrett," he greeted.

"Paul Delano, as in older brother of Frank and business partner, was found dead this morning. Gunshot to the head," Danny's no-nonsense voice greeted him back.

"Are you joking?" Steve asked. There was a moment of silence on the other end.

"Would I joke about something like this?" Danny asked. Steve let out a huff of a breath and ran a hand over his face.

"No, no… sorry, I just…"

"Yeah, babe, I know. Meet you at headquarters?" the other man asked. Steve looked to Kono, who was on alert at his reactions.

"Yeah, see you in thirty," he said before disconnecting the call. His eyes met Kono's dark gaze. "Paul Delano is dead. They found his body this morning." She let out a breath.

"Frank's going to go ballistic, wherever he is," she said.

"Yeah, I think that's what I'm worried about," he nodded in agreement. Kono quickly drained the rest of her coffee and stood.

"Well, I suppose we'd better go," she said. As she moved to walk by him, he reached out and took her hand.

"Are you really okay?" he finally asked the question he'd wanted to ask since he set foot downstairs that morning. Kono smiled.

"Yep," she told him. Steve's eyes roamed her face, looking for any sort of indication that would tell him if she was lying. Her smile fell into a serious look as she realized she wasn't going to hide anything from him. "Or I will be."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As Steve and Kono entered HQ, Chin, Lori and Danny were all at the smart table.

"Do we still have eyes on Noshimuri?" Steve asked with a hard look at the three of them. Lori looked at Kono and then back to Steve.

"Yeah. There's been no movement from him from what I've been told," she reported. Steve nodded tightly.

"I want HPD to bring him in," he said. The rest of the team looked to him in surprise.

"What do you have?" Chin asked. Steve looked to Kono.

"His  _direct_  involvement in Kono nearly drowning," he gritted out. Chin's eyes snapped over to look at his cousin.

"You left out some vital details in your story last night. You made it sound like he was just in a bad place at the wrong time," he chided. She gave him a look.

"How's Malia doing?" she asked in counter.

"She's resting and will be able to go home this afternoon," he said with a sigh. Kono nodded.

"Alright, so worrying about me is the last thing you need to be doing right now," she told him. Chin leveled her a glare.

"It's a part of the  _case_  too, you know," he said. She glared back.

"Okay, so I meant 'scolding me for my poor life decisions' is the last thing you need to be doing right now," she growled out in correction. Steve quickly stepped between the two.

"Noshimuri may be our  _only_  link to Delano right now," he cut in to catch their attention, trying to end a cousin argument before it started. It was rare enough as it was, but they didn't need one now. "It was Delano on the boat, and it was allegedly Delano's hand in the rest of yesterday's happenings too. We need Noshimuri to talk. Whatever he can give us."

"Has Joe found anything of substance?" Danny asked with a frown. "You know… considering he disappeared on me and we were working the Wo Fat and Noshimuri Senior angle?"

"He sent me a message while we were at the hospital last night. Sounds like he has a solid lead on Wo Fat. He's following it right now," Steve said. His partner gave him a look.

"Can you tell your Super SEAL Yoda that it would have been nice to know that?" he asked. Steve let out a breath.

"That's not how Joe works. Just keep following Hiro Noshimuri. Chances are if Wo Fat hasn't found him by now, he won't. But if Joe has a serious chance to find Wo Fat, he works better alone. That man has more contacts that I don't even want to know about," he told the group. Danny just shook his head before looking around the room.

"Okay, then, well... Let's get that other big elephant sitting in the room out of the way," he said. Steve leaned his palms down onto the smart table before looking around at all the members of the team.

"Yesterday was a full-on, coordinated attack on Five-0," Steve got right to the point, staring at the screen in front of him with a glare as Frank and Paul Delano's faces stared out at them.

"Yep, that was actually the elephant. Thanks, Steve," Danny said with a roll of his shoulders, focusing on the screen as well.

"It was fully tactical," Chin noted. "Almost militaristic. The only mistake is they didn't have enough manpower."

"Almost militaristic," Danny snorted in disbelief. Steve had to agree.

"If it had been a military op, Danno, we'd all be dead. They'd have taken their shots when they had us in the crosshairs and been done with it. These were mid-grade thugs and the fact that this was personal saved us. It pretty much has Frank Delano's hands  _all_  over it," he said looking around the room at each member again, his eyes catching a moment longer on Kono.

"You're joking, right?" Danny asked, uncomfortable with the sudden vulnerability he hadn't given proper consideration. Steve sighed.

"Not joking. I wish I was. You can send a 'thank you' fruit basket to Frank for being an arrogant jackass later. That doesn't erase the fact that someone wants us gone and out of the way and it appears they paid Delano to do it for them. It's not just simple breaking and entering, it's not just murder, or drugs, or whatever," he said. Chin leaned on the smart table.

"With the way things are going, it looks like it's all of it," he said with a frustrated sigh. "Someone is running a show and is protecting their turf. And since both Delano and Yakuza members are showing up dead, my guess would be that someone has both Delano and the Yakuza actually in their pockets."

"With Hiro Noshimuri unfindable right now, it would be an easy time to manipulate the replacement. Especially since the replacement would be his son, who has up until now, been untested in these waters," Kono supplied. Steve's eyes darted to her, the anger in them reminding her of who put her where she'd been. Kono held up her hands when she noticed the sudden attention it garnered from the rest of the group. "I'm just pointing out the obvious." Steve nodded tightly before refocusing on the topic at hand.

Danny shifted uncomfortably on his feet and looked to Steve warily. "And now with Paul Delano in the morgue, it's safe to say that someone has the screws to Frank now too."

"You think Paul was a warning?" Chin asked. Danny nodded.

"I think that's a safe bet. I mean, we're all here and breathing. It means Delano screwed up," he said.

"Which means he had to pay a price," Kono concluded.

"Sounds about right in terms of organization psychology and retribution practices," Lori commented.

"Wo Fat would be the one I would suspect of pulling  _all_  of the strings," Chin said. Steve turned to look at him with a quizzical look.

"What makes you say that?" he asked. Chin brought up a few files that he'd found and put them onto the big screen for them all to look at.

"I was going through the Lawrence paperwork that forensics sent over. See anything on there that looks a bit suspicious?" he asked. They all examined the evidence for a moment or two before Danny let out a small groan.

"The parent company of one of their investing partner organizations…" he said. Steve's jaw tightened as he recognized where his partner was going with that.

"… has ties to an organization in North Korea," he concluded.

"Bingo," Chin said, pulling that organization's information up onto the big screen. "And who do we know that has ties to North Korea?"

Steve ran a hand over his face. "Don't remind me." He remembered all too well his little  _vacation_. In fact, some of that lingering soreness in his tortured muscles served as a distinct reminder should he ever want to forget.

"Wo Fat has been after Hiro like a dog with a bone," Danny said. "It's feasible he wants Hiro out of the picture so he can fully take over the Yakuza here. Adam wouldn't be much of a problem right now, as he' already proved. This could be an all-out territory war we're stumbling into…"

"All the more reason to bring Noshimuri in. If his position in Yakuza is in danger, or even his life, he may be willing to talk with us and give us what we need on Wo Fat," Chin said. Steve nodded.

"Right," he agreed, then looked to Lori. "Get Noshimuri in here."

"On it," she told him before dialing HPD.

"Do we have ballistics on the gun that killed Delano?" Steve asked. Chin shook his head.

"Fong is working it now," he said. Danny gave a humorless smile.

"I can probably guess what's going to come back," he said. Steve looked over to him.

"Same guy that killed the John Does and Reyes?" he asked. Danny nodded.

"Wo Fat would have a cleaner. Absolutely. Especially as he's out running around doing errands like looking for Hiro Noshimuri personally," he concluded. "And considering our track record so far, bets are it's the same guy. Why the hell not?" He shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Then door to Five-0 opened, and a familiar face walked in. Danny groaned.

"I'm not here to exchange witty insults, Williams. I'm here to talk about Delano," Vince Fryer said in way of greeting, holding up a hand to ward off whatever Danny was gearing up to say.

"What do you know?" Steve asked, hoping it was good news for once. "Did you locate him?" Fryer shook his head in the negative, causing the group to hang their heads in frustration for a moment.

"Frank heard about Paul. He called me directly," Fryer told them with a heavy breath as he set his hands on his hips. He looked around the group. "He predictably wasn't happy."

"Oh, so the money-laundering, drug-dealing, murdering ex-cop wasn't happy that his brother was killed…" Danny said with a scoff. "Was he not aware of the occupational hazards? He didn't read the fine print on his scumbag contract?" Fryer rolled his eyes before turning to look at Steve.

"I am fully aware of what Frank pulled yesterday," Fryer said, with a lingering look at Kono before looking to Chin and Danny apologetically. "He knows that we have pretty much every agency in all of Hawaii and in our worldwide little black book on lookout for his face. He's got a huge red target on his head."

"Meaning?" Kono asked, crossing her arms expectantly. Fryer took a deep breath.

"He's desperate. Especially if he called me. We can maybe get him to agree to work with us," Fryer suggested. Danny shook his head emphatically as he looked to Steve.

"No. No way. The man tried to kill us and people that are closest to us. No. Not even  _remotely_  an option," he told his partner. Steve's frown deepened.

"You  _seriously_  want to try to work with the asshole who tried to have all of us killed?" he asked. Fryer let out a frustrated sigh.

"You never see the bigger picture, do you, McGarrett?" he asked. "If we could get Frank to spill the beans, we could have a wider reach at taking out whatever seems to be trying to take over the island. We still have no concrete evidence as to what's going on. All  _we_  have are conjectures at this point."

"And Frank has more than conjectures," Kono filled in the rest of the blanks. Fryer looked at her with a smirk.

"Sure you don't want to work for me?" he asked, knowing full well what reactions he would get from it. The frowns on all three of the other men's faces projected their thoughts rather adequately.

"So what do you propose, Fryer?" Steve asked.

"And you thought you didn't like me before," he began with another smirk. Then he indicated to Kono. "I'd like to send Kono in on this one."

A pin dropping could have been heard in the silence that followed. Then Danny's eyebrows rose in incredulity.

"You're insane. Like completely certifiable," the blond finally said, gesturing to emphasize his point. He indicated to Steve for a second. "I thought I'd seen crazy before. But seriously? This… this actually tops it all."

"There's no way Kono is going in again," Chin said with a growl edging his voice. He turned to look at the strangely silent Steve, who was watching Kono.

"Steve," Danny prompted after a moment. "Tell the man no…" Kono let out a huff.

"Thanks, Danny. Didn't realize it wasn't  _my_  choice," Kono said, her eyes locked on Steve's as well as she realized he was actually letting her make the decision. The blond man turned to look at her.

"You can't seriously be thinking about it," he said more than asked. Kono let out a humorless chuckle.

"Why not? We're not exactly swimming in leads or information at the moment," she told him. Then she looked to her cousin. "Right now, we've got two avenues. You guys can work the Noshimuri angle. I can help on the Delano angle. I was doing it before, this would just be more active a part, and this time it wouldn't be undercover. You'll  _all_ be in the loop." Chin gave her a look that said he hated when she used logic against him that he couldn't argue. He let out a breath. Before he could say anything though, Lori came back into the case room. Her profiler eyes noted the tension as her eyes went immediately to Fryer. The IA man gave her a quick nod in greeting.

"Um, I just wanted to let you know that Noshimuri is in interrogation. He's looking a bit rough. HPD had found him nearly passed out and an empty bottle of scotch next to him," Lori informed them, indicating behind her. Steve nodded as he started to think things through a bit more.

"Kono?" he asked. She nodded to him.

"I've got Delano," she decided. He nodded, even as he could see both Danny and Chin shaking their heads.

"And I've got her back," Fryer noted. Steve looked over at him with a look that said he seriously doubted it. But as he looked back to Kono, she was resolved.

"Okay. Just…" he started, and then stopped himself. He wanted to tell her to not let it get personal, but he was fully aware that 'personal' had gone out the window a long time ago for all of them. Instead, he turned to Chin.

"You've got her back," he told the other man. When Fryer made to speak up, Steve held up a hand. "Non-negotiable." It took Fryer a second or two of narrow-eyed glaring, but he finally nodded. Chin nodded as well, relieved that there would be someone from Five-0 with Kono. Satisfied that it was worked out, Steve looked to the other members of the team.

"Danny, Lori… Noshimuri's yours," he ordered. Danny raised a brow at him, but Steve ignored it. "If he does not know Kono is alive, he is not to know… yet. Understand?"

"Gotcha," Lori said before nodding at Danny that she was ready when he was.

"And you will be doing what, fearless leader?" the blond man asked. Steve gave him an innocent look.

"Watching the interrogation," he said simply, with a quick smile to placate his partner. Danny shook his head and looked to Lori.

"I hate it when he does that," he said. Lori frowned, confused.

"What? Watch?"

"No," Danny said, resigned. "Smile. It doesn't mean anything good…"

The three made their way towards the Five-0 interrogation area, leaving Chin and Kono to their discussions with Fryer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued..._


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Fifteen

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kono tapped her fingers against the smart table as she listened to Fryer yell at another officer over his cell phone. She exchanged amused glances with Chin as they listened to the one-sided conversation.

"… I don't care! I need a location and I don't care if you have to call the President of the United States to get it!" the man yelled. Kono let out a breath.

"Frank is definitely still on the island, there's no doubt about that," she told her cousin. Chin nodded at the likely scenario as he crossed his arms and looked up to the smirking picture of Frank Delano on the screen in front of them.

"You know as well as I do, cuz, that a person can disappear for months on these islands. And you know that Delano certainly doesn't need official channels to get off of O'ahu," he told her. Kono nodded.

"He called Fryer, though. He knows he's in trouble, and a rat like Frank knows he's going to need bigger guns than he's got to keep him out of Wo Fat's crosshairs," she said.

"You think he's actually looking for police protection at this point? After all he's done?" Chin asked, eyes wide with a bit of wonder at the thought. Kono shook her head.

"No. I think he's looking for someone that can get him that protection  _because_  of everything he's done. So he dials up his old partner, who has a personal vendetta against him. Who else would even be slightly willing to make  _any_  sort of deal?" she asked. Chin nodded in agreement as he watched Fryer pace back and forth agitatedly, waiting for a response from whomever he was conversing with.

"If Fryer can't get a location, it's all going to come down to how desperate Frank feels," Chin noted. Kono let out a breath.

"Yeah. Which could mean a lot of things at this point. He's certainly not desperate because his brother's dead. He's just desperate because he knows he's outgunned," she commented.

"Well, his sense of self-preservation could get us what we need," Chin noted, watching closely as Fryer hung up his phone and approached them.

"Want to go on a field trip?" he asked, with a small smile.

"You got a location?" Chin asked. Fryer shook his head.

"Not an exact one. But HPD got a report of suspicious activity near Kahana Bay," he said. Kono looked thoughtful.

"That could be remote enough for Frank to skip off a boat and then make a run for it inland," she said. Fryer nodded as he started towards the door.

"As good a place to start as any," he said. Then he threw a glance back to Kono. "Sure you won't be needed here?" Chin frowned as he followed Kono, reminded again of who was sitting in the interrogation room and why. Kono hesitated only for a second.

"No, I won't be needed. I gave my report," she said with a note of finality. Fryer nodded.

"Good. Then you need to get to Halawa," he told her. Kono stopped in her tracks.

"Wait… what?" she asked, confused at the sudden change in what she'd assumed was a plan. Chin also stopped to narrow his eyes at the man in front of them.

"What's at Halawa?" he asked. Fryer stopped to turn to look at the two of them.

"Ray Mapes is at Halawa, currently serving a 20 year sentence. He was Frank's right hand man. If anyone knows of where Frank would dig a hidey-hole, it would be Ray," he told them. Kono frowned.

"And what makes you think he'd tell me anything?" she asked. Fryer quickly looked to Chin and then back to her.

"Because we've made sure he's heard that you were reinstated at Five-0 under suspicion but cleared of all charges. And we've also made sure he heard rumors you've been in contact with Paul while Frank was inside…" he said. Both Kono and Chin looked at the man with wide eyes.

"She was  _done_  with all of that, Fryer," Chin growled out, furious. "McGarrett made  _sure_  of that."

"Of course he did," Fryer said with a smirk. Kono shook her head.

"This is why you've been trying to recruit me, isn't it?" she asked, putting her hands on hips and giving the man a hard stare. Chin looked between the two before looking back at Fryer.

"You sneaky son of a bitch," he growled, clenching his hands yet resisting the urge to continue what Steve had so eloquently finished after the Bank of O'ahu situation. Fryer just shrugged. Kono let out a breath.

"You've been wanting a body to go with the stories that you've been feeding Mapes. To what end?" she asked. Fryer let out a breath.

"We knew that Paul was running the show after Frank went inside. We'd always known that's where the cards were going to fall. But we couldn't move on Paul without a truckload of evidence. Paul was a heavier spender than Frank ever was. So it was inevitable that he'd have to find partners to run deals. We wanted those partners…" he said.

"You're trying to move up the food chain. And with Paul dead…" Chin started. Fryer gave him a humorless smirk.

"We're at square one. Which means we need whatever information we can get out of Mapes. Where Frank could be, what deals they could be running, and who could possibly be leading up the organization," he said, looking to Kono pointedly. "And the only person he would ever disclose that to would be someone he thought might have the potential to do so…"

"Are you serious?" Chin asked. "You want Kono to pose as that person? Mapes likely already knows that Delano tried to take Kono out. That  _isn't_  exactly confidence instilling." Fryer shook his head.

"He doesn't know. He's been in solitary since I came on the case and those guarding him have been handpicked by me… Kono now has the benefit of the doubt on her side. She can get into Halawa as a cop, no problem. She won't be suspicious to the police presence, and I know she can sell the dirty side of things to Mapes. She has before, she can do it again."

Kono thought most of this through. It was true what Fryer was saying, no matter how much she'd rather it not be true. The last thing she wanted was to go sit across from Ray Mapes. And as much as she hated Fryer's backstage machinations, she understood them. Steve demanding that the governor put the kibosh on her undercover had to have left IA and Fyer in a bit of a strategic pickle knowing that even though Delano was in prison, his organization ran strong. Three years of work wasn't  _just_  for Delano…

"It makes sense," she said finally, looking up to meet Fryer's gaze head on. He nodded.

"Kono," Chin said, coming to her side and laying a hand on her shoulder. She gave him a tight smile.

"It  _does_  make sense, Chin. You know it too," she told him. Her cousin let that sink in for a moment before he let out a breath and turned to look at the IA man.

"What you're asking could put a whole lot of attention on Kono. I'm not letting her do it alone," he said. Fryer rolled his eyes.

"If you think I would let her do it alone after the last go around with you guys, you're nuts," he said, flexing his jaw briefly. Chin nodded.

"Okay," he agreed.

"Peachy," Fryer said with a sarcastic sweetness. "Now, if you don't mind, I have an HPD unit waiting on me to get up to Kahana Bay. I'll leave you to it…" Kono and Chin watched him stalk out of HQ as they stood just outside of the Five-0 doors.

"We should tell McGarrett," Chin said, watching Kono warily. She shook her head.

"He's in interrogation, let him do that. Let's just get this done, we'll brief him when we get back." With that, she started down the hallway towards the door. Chin let out a breath as he quickly typed a text to Steve letting him know their destination as things were likely going to get interesting.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Five-0 Interrogation_

Lori held out a picture of the deceased Randal Cortez towards their guest.

"Can you identify this man?" she asked. Adam Noshimuri didn't even bother to look at the picture as his head was bowed and his eyes locked somewhere on the cement floor. Lori dropped her arm and looked over to Danny, who just shook his head.

"We know you were at Nobu with Officer Kalakaua weeks ago, and this man was part of your personal entourage," she said. Silence. Danny rolled his neck quickly before crossing his arms impatiently.

"Takes a bit of money to get your own personal staff hired on for an evening of entertainment at a high end restaurant. Must have been a hell of a girl," he noted. Again he was met by silence, but the man in front of him did visibly swallow hard. Lori nodded to Danny… this was a chink in the armor, they just needed to stick with it.

"So tell me," Danny said, pulling up one of the other chairs and sitting in it. "How did you meet Officer Kalakaua?" Another hard swallow from Adam.

"Pretty girl, so you felt you had to impress her, right? I mean, I get that. Can't say that I've rented out a restaurant – hard to do on a cop's salary – but I've certainly pulled out all the stops before," he told Adam agreeably.

"Is that why you brought your own staff in?" Lori asked. "So that you could show off a bit? Show Officer Kalakaua that you could?"

"Did she even know?" Danny looked back at Lori to ask hypothetically. The woman just shrugged.

"I guess it doesn't really matter," she said good-naturedly. "I know Kono wasn't usually the type to be impressed by all of that. She was a very down-to-earth island girl."

The use of the past tense did not go unnoticed as Adam winced at the statement. Danny caught on to that.

"I still can see why you'd want to do that, though. Kono was smart, beautiful, badass… all the things most men would be intimidated by. So, what's a few grand tossed away if it could help you out in that aspect, huh?" he asked. "I mean, why else would Kono look twice at you? I mean, you  _are_  a part of an international cartel… she  _was_  a cop." Adam flinched as Danny made his jab, but after a moment, he took a deep breath and settled his features back to calm while they sat in silence.

"You need to let me go," Adam said finally, his voice quiet and tired as he tugged at the handcuffs a bit. Danny chuckled and crossed his arms.

"Now  _why_  would we need to do that?" he asked. Adam looked to Danny with a frown.

"Let… me… go… I have  _nothing_  to say to you," he said, uncomfortably. Then he looked to Lori. "And you have nothing on me to keep me here." She snorted a laugh.

"We have surveillance of Officer Kalakaua's car entering your home the evening she was taken. And we have surveillance of Officer Kalakaua's car leaving your home," she told him.

"Then I don't see the problem, nor will my lawyer," Adam said, looking between them. Danny shook his head as he made a 'tsk-tsk' sound.

"You see, the problem is that her car was driven out by a man over  _two_  times her size. And last I'd seen of her, she was neither a man nor a She-Hulk. So, I think you can figure out why you're here now, can't you?" he asked.

"You don't  _understand_! I  _can't_  be here!" Adam suddenly shouted, tears starting anew. "He killed her. He killed Kono. And now…"

"Now  _what_?" Danny asked after a long moment, quickly losing patience.

"He knows where my father is. I have to go, I have to make sure he's safe. I couldn't save her, but I can try to save him. You need to let me out," Adam choked out. Danny looked back at the observation window, knowing Steve was behind it.

"Who knows? Wo Fat?" he asked, looking back to the other man again. Adam didn't even respond as he stared at the wall in front of him.

"My father is a dead man…"

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Japan_

Hiro Noshimuri stood looking out over a beautifully lit Osaka as he sipped at a warm sake. It warmed and relaxed him, which he couldn't say he had been in the past weeks. But he was tired of running, knowing full well that Death was nipping at his heels. It had been since the moment he made the deal with Shelburne. And now, that deal was going to end up killing him. It was no use escaping the inevitable.

Hiro heard the door to his suite open, but there was no greeting. It was enough to warn him.

"I knew it would be you," he said without turning around.

"You are a popular man, Mr. Noshimuri," the man behind him said. "That, and a greedy one. We had a deal."

"My son…"

"Has proved useful. As long as he holds to your deal, he will remain useful."

"Then I guess our business is concluded…" Hiro said, taking one last sip of his sake as he turned around to face his fate.

"You are a liability, so… yes." Two shots rang out in the space of the room.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Five-0 Interrogation_

Steve watched as Adam Noshimuri basically broke apart in front of him. It had taken everything in him to not storm in there and lay a few punches to the man. This is the man that had handed Kono over to Delano… this is the man that had known her planned fate and had done it anyway. A man who had wined, dined, and  _pretended_  to care about her… He would not allow Noshimuri that brief moment of regret he'd displayed. Not for a millisecond. And that urge to use his fists is why Danny and Lori were doing the questioning.

Danny looked at him through the one-way glass and shook his head. They weren't going to get anything useful out of him today. They'd have to cut him loose for now, but definitely with a heavier tail than the one before.

He let out a frustrated breath just as his phone chirped at him, announcing the arrival of another message – he'd missed one just a few minutes ago as he'd watched Adam break down.

The first message, as he read it, made his heart stop:  _Kono and I are headed to Halawa. Fryer has a plan, we'll brief you later. - Chin_

The second message made his heart kick-start up again and then race:  _Tracked Wo Fat to Osaka. Hiro Noshimuri dead. Wo Fat still at large. - J_

With his brain whirling around all the information, Steve quickly knocked on the window alerting Danny and Lori that he needed their presence. There was no telling what was going to happen now.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_Halawa Correctional Facility_

Kono had asked Chin to stay out with the car. She didn't want him walking in with her and having his name on the record of being there, especially if it was going to come down to playing dirty cop again. It was the last thing he needed. This way, plausible deniability was an option for him.

Chin had argued. He'd definitely argued and given her that unnerving, straight stare of his. But common sense, as it usually did with Chin Ho Kelly, won out. He had Malia to think about, and beyond that even, there really wasn't much he could accomplish by going in there with her besides complicate things. This was going to be her game, and she was going to have to be good at it. She needed to keep it as simple as possible. Ray Mapes wasn't an idiot. And no matter what, he was going to suspect her. He had definitely been good at it before back when she was trying to break her way into the organization, it certainly wasn't going to change with him sitting in prison orange.

Kono clipped on the visitor's badge as she made her way into the visiting area. The guard indicated that she should sit at the cubicle farthest from the door. It worked for her. The less others heard of their conversation, the better. Kono sat down, mentally willing away her nerves. It took another minute for the prisoners to be allowed into the visiting area, and another minute for them to find their cubicles.

When Ray Mapes finally stood in front of her, he looked surprised. But it was quickly replaced with his usual swagger as he sat down and picked up the phone. Kono picked up her handset as well.

"Well, well, well… Look who has her badge back," Ray greeted her. "And it begs the question… what the hell are you doing here visiting little, old me?"

Kono rolled her eyes with a bit of her own bravado. "Good to see you too, Ray." He chuckled.

"I didn't say it was good to see you," he said with a smirk. "Let me guess… You're here on a Five-0 errand wanting to know where Frank has run off to."

"I couldn't give a shit about Frank," she said, causing Ray to raise a curious eyebrow at her.

"Really?" he asked. She shrugged.

"As far as I am concerned, Frank's a dead man. Paul Delano's already dead, so it shouldn't be long now." Internally, Kono winced at the callousness of the statement. She knew she needed to rebuild that wall of apathy she'd had during the undercover op. It was the only thing that saved her on multiple occasions. It would likely be the only thing that saved her now, too.

"Is that a fact?" Ray asked. He looked to think about that for a moment. "Can't say as I did hear about Paul. As I'm sure you're more than aware I've been stuck on my own for the past few weeks, so the gossip mill doesn't really get to me."

"Frank broke a deal and Paul was killed in retaliation," she told him. Ray smiled.

"Couldn't have happened to a better man. And now… what exactly is it that has  _you_  coming all the way out here?"

Kono mentally took a breath. That was a good question…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

To be continued…


	16. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Sixteen

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

When Danny and Lori came out of the interrogation room and nodded to the waiting officer to cut Adam loose, they followed a tense-looking Steve back to the case room.

"Chin and Kono?" Danny inquired of his partner. Steve frowned as he took his place in front of the smart table and quickly dialed a number from it.

"Apparently at Halawa," he told them as the call engaged and rang. Danny looked confused.

"What's at Halawa?" he asked, his question becoming useless as the person on the other line picked up.

"Steve…" Chin's voice sounded equal parts relieved and nervous.

"What are you guys doing at Halawa?" Steve asked without preamble, leaning his palms onto the table.

"Let's just put it this way for now… Fryer outlined a plan that would require Kono's presence here," Chin told them.

"Plan?" Danny asked with a wary frown. "I'm not sure I like it when plans come from Fryer." A chuckle came over the line.

"You and me both, brah," Chin said. Then he let out a breath. "Kono's inside talking with Mapes." Danny and Lori's eyes immediately looked over to Steve, waiting for the expected aneurysm face. But they were surprised when it didn't come. Instead, it looked like the man was chewing glass…

"Okay," Steve said as rationally as possible despite the urge to punch the very expensive table in front of him. "What is she going to be talking with Mapes about?" Chin's silence spoke volumes about what the rest of them were going to think about it. "Chin…"

"Out with it, kemosabe, otherwise our fearless leader is going to burst a blood vessel," Danny added, eyeing Steve warily.

"Fryer's been passing along to Mapes that Kono was reinstated, but under a cloud of suspicion. He's also put the word out that Kono has been in contact with Paul Delano since Frank got his prison issue," Chin said. Steve shook his head as if he heard wrong.

"He  _what?"_  he asked.

"That's a goddamn lie," Danny growled, his anger at Fryer flaring back to life.

"This all circles around the recruiting angle," Chin told them. Danny let out a huff as things clicked in his head. It didn't make him any happier about it, though.

"He's been setting the stage for someone to step in and take a top rung in an undercover op. Only he's been thinking more specific about the  _someone_ … Fryer wants Kono to do it," he connected the dots.

"Exactly," Chin confirmed. Steve let out a sharp breath.

"And she agreed, didn't she?" he asked.

"I can't say that she  _agreed_ , but she saw the sense in it," Chin admitted. "And I made sure Five-0 was with her all the way."

"That's something," Danny commented. "I'm surprised Fryer agreed to that."

"I'm thinking he didn't want another bloodied lip," Chin said. Steve smirked as he straightened.

"Alright, well… keep me posted. I want a full briefing when you get back," he said. Then he looked to Danny and Lori. "We've also had another development…"

"Uh oh,  _there's_  the aneurysm face… this doesn't bode well," Danny muttered.

"Hiro Noshimuri is dead." There was a chorus of 'what?' around the room at the news.

"How?" Lori asked with a frown.

"He was tracked to Osaka. Joe thinks Wo Fat caught up to him," Steve told them.

"And of course, the authorities don't have Wo Fat," Danny guessed. Steve shook his head.

"This strengthens our theory on Wo Fat being behind it all. Why else would he take out Hiro Noshimuri?" Lori asked. Steve nodded in agreement. Chin let out a heavy breath over the phone line.

"This could make things interesting for Kono," he said. "If she does actually crack into Delano's place or near it, which in reality is a long shot at this point, the path up could lead right to Wo Fat…" The memory of Wo Fat torturing him had Steve clenching his fists on the table. He'd rather keep Kono out of the center of Wo Fat's radar, especially after the Delano incident, but he knew what Fryer was trying to accomplish. Steve's personal feelings on the matter really couldn't interfere with what could be what they needed to crack the case and get rid of Wo Fat once and for all. So, he grit his teeth and pushed past the initial resistance.

"Five-0 has her back. And if it takes us to Wo Fat, then we'll be prepared for that," he said finally.  _He_ would be prepared for that. Then he looked to Danny and Lori. "In the meantime, we need to keep a close eye on Adam. With Hiro dead, that means he is the de facto head of Yakuza here in Hawaii until we know differently. We have the connection to put him away if we can get enough evidence to support it. So we need to do that…"

"Alright. Weston and I will tackle that," Danny told him. Steve nodded in agreement.

"I need to call Joe. Someone knows where Wo Fat is. We just need to figure out who," Steve said. "And Chin, obviously you are not to leave Kono's side. Fryer has a plan, but I don't trust him watching her back."

"Copy that. We'll head back in as soon as she gets done," Chin told them before hanging up. Lori immediately got on her phone to check in with Adam's tail and apprise them of the importance of them making sure nothing slips through the cracks now that Hiro was confirmed dead. Danny leaned on the smart table and gave Steve a look.

"So are you really going to tell me what's up?" he asked. Steve crossed his arms and looked at his partner.

"What do you mean?"

"You've almost been… restrained. Which, might I add, is not a word I even remotely associate with you. So, ergo, something's going on in your head," Danny said. Steve just shook his head in wonderment.

"We've got some big problems in our backyard at the moment, and you want to psychoanalyze me?" he asked. Danny's eyebrows quirked at him.

"Now that you mention it, a bi-annual appointment to have that done by a professional isn't a bad idea. I'll be sure to get that onto your calendar. But no, that's not what I'm trying to do," his partner told him.

"Then enlighten me, what are you trying to do?"

"You know what, never mind. You're being all belligerent now." Danny shook his head. "Forget I asked."

"Good, I will," Steve retorted. His partner rolled his eyes.

"Good."

"Great."

"Just don't come crying to me when whatever's going on is dying to get out. You'll have to talk to Weston, because I've spent all the care I had," Danny told him with a wave of his hand as he went towards his office.

Steve watched him go with a frown, and then the words just blurted out without his brain's permission. "We almost lost her twice, Danny." This caused the blond man to stop in his tracks and then spin around to face his partner with an appraising frown.

"What?" he asked. Steve let out a breath.

"Kono. Both times, Fryer and Delano had the upper hand and we had no control. If this thing with Fryer is what we need to do, if this is what  _she_  needs to do… then we need to do it right," he told his friend. Danny tilted his head slightly as he processed and evaluated what Steve said.

"Alright. I get that," he said with a nod. "Is that all?" Steve let out a huff.

"Isn't that enough?" he asked. Danny rolled his eyes.

"Alright, alright. Points for the effort," he conceded. Then he gave his friend a quick point and wink. "But I feel we've made progress here today. I'll be sure to send you my bill. And remind me to threaten you with Weston should I need to get information outta you again."

"Don't you have work to do?" Steve rolled his own eyes before heading towards his office. Danny just smiled at his back.

"Of course. But I couldn't possibly do that without giving you my requisite amount of grief first."

"Go do it then," Steve called back to him. "Before I decide your office would be better outside."

"Ouch, Steven…" Danny returned. "Ouch. You  _know_  what the Hawaiian sun does to my complexion." And then he, too, departed for his own office. Steve let out a breath, glad for once that Danny hadn't stuck to the conversation with his usual tenacity. There were things  _he_  needed to figure out first before he could even begin to verbalize it.

But that was the least of his pressing problems. Steve pulled out his cell phone and dialed Joe's number.

"I expected your call earlier," Joe's voice greeted him. Steve gave him a quick huff of a laugh.

"Yeah, well, I expected you to not pick up," he retorted.

"Touché," Joe said. "Wo Fat's on his way back to the islands, no secrets about it. I'm pretty sure he's done being careful."

"Because Hiro is dead and he has what he needs on Shelburne."

"Exactly." Steve ran a hand over his face at Joe's confirmation.

"We've had an eventful couple of days. This should make it even more interesting," he said.

"Well, I'm waiting for my flight. Fill me in," Joe said.

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

Lori stared at the footage on the computer and chewed on her thumbnail. Then she looked out her door to where she could see Danny sitting at his desk and debated calling him into the room. But that was taken out of her hands as the blond man let out an audible huff, stood from his desk, and then marched into her office.

"Okay, spill it Weston. I can hear the grinding of your brain gears from my office. And you also have a  _very_  heavy stare," he said. She let out a breath.

"Well… I was just wondering whether or not to tell you that Adam Noshimuri has been parked outside of headquarters for over a half an hour now. Ever since he was let out of interrogation. He's just sitting there in his SUV, his goons standing watch…" she said. Danny frowned as she turned her monitor around enough so that he could see what she'd been watching.

"Why?" he asked. Lori shrugged.

"Beats me." Danny thought about that for a quiet moment before something made sense.

"He could have heard that Kono is alive and well and currently playing guest to Halawa. He did leave here thinking she was dead," he said. Lori's brow furrowed in concern.

"You think he's waiting for her to come in? That's a bit out there for the new head of the Yakuza," she said. Danny shook his head.

"Not if it's personal…"

"Crap," Lori said, her eyes going back to her computer screen. Danny looked over to see Steve hang up from his cell phone, presumably his conversation with Joe White.

"Well, he's making it easy on his tail," Danny said in an attempt at lightheartedness, his eyes still on his partner. "Listen, I'll go brief McGarrett on this. You sit tight and let me know if anything changes…" Lori let out a breath as she nodded.

"Better you than me," she said. Danny gave her a look.

"Thanks. You're a pal," he told her. She just shrugged as he left her office. Danny took a deep breath before heading towards the other office.

"Got something already, Danno?" Steve asked.

"Well… depends on how you look at it," the blond said mysteriously. Steve quirked an eyebrow in question.

"Usually that is a yes or no question. What's going on?" he asked, standing from his desk.

"Noshimuri has been paying the parking meter outside headquarters since we let him go," Danny said without preamble. Steve frowned.

"Okay, he's making life easy on his tail," he commented. There were rare days when Danny was quite pleased when he and Steve could think on the same page. Granted, those days were  _very_ rare as he usually was frightened for the coming apocalypse when those occasions happened… but today was one of those days where he was grateful and could appreciate it properly. Mainly because it usually meant  _he_ wasn't going to get almost killed.

"Yeah, easy. Sure. But I have a feeling he is now aware that Kono is alive…" he started as Steve's shoulders suddenly stiffened.

"… and he is waiting for her to get back to HQ so he can confront her," he finished.

"Kind of stupid for him to be sitting outside our house to do it, though," Danny noted. Steve let out a breath as he ran a hand over his face.

"Or he could be doing it on purpose," he said. "Let's not think like a cartel boss for a moment…"

Danny nodded in agreement. "Like I told Lori, this is personal. He could be staying here to prove he means her no harm." Steve nodded, although he hated that particular conclusion because it meant Noshimuri was toeing the line. Steve wanted him behind bars.

"After everything that's gone on? It's probable. We just gotta watch him," he said as he let out a breath, not entirely liking that plan but knowing it was their only option for now.

"Have you heard from Chin or Kono?" Danny asked. Steve looked at his watch, noting that their time at Halawa had to have been up by now. He resisted the urge to grab his cell phone and call them.

"Not yet…"

__~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_ _

_Halawa Correctional Facility_

They stared at each other for a long, quiet moment. The buzz of conversation going on around them as other people visited each other. Kono doubted that there were any other conversations occurring like the one she was embarking on with Ray Mapes. She steeled her nerves and took a quick breath.

"I want to know what partners Frank had been talking about before… well…  _before_. Those were details you guys were careful to keep me out of in our little meetings," Kono told him. Mapes scoffed at her.

"For very good reason, as you well know," he told her right back, sitting back in his chair with a look of disdain. Kono mentally rolled her eyes.

"There are  _many_ things I know, Ray. Many things that I'm sure  _you_  don't know. Especially considering your predicament," she said with bite. Mapes' eyes narrowed.

"It's because of  _you_  that I'm in here in the first place. So why the hell would I help you?" he asked. Kono raised an eyebrow as she leaned forward onto the small table in front of her.

"It's because of  _your_  idiotic plan to follow me and Patricia Joyner to the bank that got you caught. That was  _not_  on me," she said.

"I beg to differ. It was your precious Five-0 that took me out," he growled. Kono shook her head.

"Do you think Five-0 is a bunch of idiots? I'll tell you from first-hand experience, they're not. They followed Joyner, mainly because your guys took out that volleyball coach and her husband. The dots do end up connecting sometimes, Ray," she spit out. Then she calmed a bit and sat back. "If you had just let me do my job and get Patricia in and out, you wouldn't be in the position."

"And now you want to know who Frank wanted to partner with. For what? All I can think of is that you're going to go after them too. I don't squeal… Not for anyone, but especially not Five-0," Mapes frowned. Kono stared at him for a long moment before sitting forward again.

"I'm not sitting in front of you as Five-0, Ray," she growled softly. His dark eyes evaluated her for a long moment.

"So you're telling me you're playing both sides then," he commented just as quietly. Kono gave him a single nod.

"I had been chatting with Paul on the down low, getting him some intel here and there where I could. With my badge back, I have to be more careful now. But that does  _not_  mean I'm not still in the game," she told him. Mapes let out a small huff.

"We can all see where your intel got Paul, can't we?" he asked sarcastically. Kono rolled her eyes.

"I'm not a miracle worker, Ray. I can't be his eyes and ears 24 hours a day. Frank was stupid, and then Paul didn't take that seriously enough. Not my fault he didn't know what that would mean," she said. "Which means, you need to tell me who Frank was working with. If there's any hope of keeping things running now, I need to be on the same page. With Paul gone, and you here, who do you think is actually going to run things?" Mapes scoffed.

"You think it's going to be  _you_?" The disbelief was there in the question.

Kono sat back slightly. "Perhaps not. But think of who would be next to take over… and if I know what webs you guys have weaved, I can at least use what I have to keep things going. I have a lot of pull at my fingertips right now, Ray. It'd be stupid to not take advantage of that."

It took Mapes a few minutes to think that over. Then he let out a breath. "You know I can't tell you what you want to know. I can  _maybe_  give you something. But the big question then, Officer Kalakaua, is what can  _you_  do for  _me?"_

The ten minute warning from the guards was alerted through the room as Kono thought over the question. She knew it was going to continue to be a back and forth game between them if they kept this up. So, she knew there would have to be some sort of compromise worked out. Ray Mapes was that type of guy. Kono only hoped that Fryer would be willing to play ball with that. She leaned forward again and stared at the other man hard.

"The thing is, Ray, we're going to have to play a game of quid pro quo, here. I know that. I'm working both sides of the fence, which means I need to be legit on both sides of the fence. So our conversation? If I'm going to do something for you, that means you're going to have to do something for me. Today. Now. And since your attitude since the moment you sat down isn't very conducive to me being polite on  _this_  side of the fence, I'd expect a  _lot_  more solitary in your future. That should be a fun 20 years," Kono told him as she shifted to put the phone down.

"Wait…" Mapes said, gripping the phone tighter. Kono paused in putting her handset down before bringing it up to her ear again.

"I'm listening," she said slowly in way of prompt. The man on the other side of the glass swallowed hard.

"I can give you the shooter. The man who killed those cops… and… and I can give you the guy who broke Frank out."

"I said I'm listening," Kono told him, her eyes hard on him as she shifted her full attention back.

__~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_ _

_Later  
Five-0 Headquarters_

After Chin parked the car, the two cousins sat in silence for a few moments. Then Chin turned to Kono.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. Kono leaned her head onto her hand.

"What I have to, Chin."

"Are you sure? The last time you went under, you could sell yourself as dirty. Remember the whole island knows you, and knows what you do. It was one thing for you to do undercover a year ago or even six months ago. It's a completely different ballgame now," Chin warned her. She glared over at him.

"You don't think I know that? But you also know as well as I do that once you're dirty, you're never clean. Look at how everyone still looks at you," she pointed out. "That's to my advantage."

"What is?" Chin asked, not knowing whether she was referring to her previous undercover stint or his still-tarnished reputation. Her eyes held on his.

"All of it," she said simply. "It's why Fryer wants me in there. And it's why it makes sense it is me. I already have the foundation laid down, and Fryer has been working it behind the scenes."

"I get that," Chin told her. "But I don't get why you're so adamant about doing it yourself. Fryer could have easily trained someone else up to do this."

"Are you so sure about that?" she asked him. "Because I'm not." Silence fell again.

"Noshimuri's involved," Chin said softly. "And then we have Wo Fat in the mix. Delano is still out there. This isn't simple." Kono let her chin drop as she played with her hands.

"It wasn't before. And because of all that, because somehow  _all_  of that is what we've dealt with at some point, we need to finish it. This is  _our_  island. And we can't let Yakuza, Wo Fat, Delano, or anyone else tear it to pieces," she said. Chin nodded tightly, knowing that Kono had made up her mind. And then his eyes caught on something.

"With Noshimuri…" he noted softly. Kono shook her head.

"Nothing to worry about Chin. I admit, we could have had something maybe. Or maybe not, I honestly don't know. Regardless, it's hard to come back from being dropped in the ocean and left for dead," she told him bitterly.

"Good to know. Because I think you're going to have company," Chin said pointing out his driver side door towards a looming, black SUV. Standing next to it was Adam Noshimuri, hands in his pants pockets and waiting. Kono followed Chin's line of sight and let out a breath when she recognized the other man.

"Shit," she said. Chin looked over to her at her expletive with a frown.

"I can make him go away, Kono. And I have backup," he assured her, showing her his phone. It took only a quick speed dial to have Steve and Danny there too. Hell, all of HPD if that's what it took to get the point across. After a brief second of hesitation, she shook her head.

"No. Might as well get this done," she said, pulling on the handle to open the door. As she got out of the vehicle, Adam straightened and took his hands out of his pockets. He quickly waved off the guards and started to approach. Chin got out of the vehicle as well, and left Kono to her conversation – but not without a warning glare at the approaching man.

It turns out that Chin hadn't needed to call in backup anyway, as Kono caught out of the corner of her eye both Steve and Danny emerging from the building. Chin caught up with them and called them off. But that didn't mean all three of them didn't stand outside the building door and watch the situation closely. Kono let out a sigh.

"Adam," she greeted as she stood a few paces away from him. "I really don't think we have anything to say to each other…"

"I think we do," he said, his eyes roaming her face. Then his eyes caught on the unofficial sentries behind her. "Can we go somewhere a little more private?" Kono shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest.

"The last time we did that it wasn't private and I ended up in the ocean. So… no. Say what you think you need to say and then please leave," she told him.

"I'm sorry," he said, a plea for whatever forgiveness she could give him in his dark eyes. Kono just crossed her arms and gave him a heavy look.

"You invited me to your home under false pretenses knowing I trusted you, you then drugged me, handed me to a criminal, and let him drop me into the ocean never to be seen again," she reminded him. "You're lucky you're not in jail. But that can be remedied soon."

"Kono…" he started. But she shook her head and started to turn away.

"No, you know what? This is over. I have nothing more to say to you, and I don't want to hear what you have to say."

"Kono, what we had…" She spun back around to glare at him.

"… is done!" she barely restrained herself from yelling. Adam winced slightly at that. She balled her hands into fists, clenching them tightly at her side. "We are no longer just Kono and Adam. And we were just fooling ourselves to think that we could ever be  _just_  the two of us - two  _normal_  people in a relationship… Goodbye, Adam."

For a brief second, the mask her anger had provided slipped and regret seeped onto Kono's face as she looked at him. But she quickly hid it and turned to head into headquarters.

"Kono…" Adam said quietly. He didn't know what he wanted to say in response, or what he wanted to do, but when he reached out to take her arm another hand stopped him. Adam looked to his left and saw the angry face of Steve McGarrett. He hadn't even seen the man approach.

"Nuh-uh…" the other man said with a stiff shake of his head and inserting himself between the two of them. Danny Williams stood just behind Steve with a knowing look.

"We call that his 'aneurysm face', and it usually means you're about to lose a limb somehow. Probably some crazy SEAL tactic. So, in the effort to avoid any sort of dismemberment in front of Five-0, I'd probably go get into your pretty little SUV and go home," the blond said indicating the waiting vehicle behind him. Then he indicated to Steve. "I can  _maybe_  hold this one back, but there's no guarantee on that. But I do know for a fact I wouldn't be able to hold back an angry Chin Ho at the same time. And that's saying nothing of a perturbed Kono. So, your odds aren't looking to good, pal."

Adam looked at Kono, wanting to say so much to her. But the stubborn set of her jaw told him she wasn't going to listen, no matter what he said. His eyes caught on the steely gaze of her cousin as he stepped in behind her with his arms crossed, a show of support for her and a warning for Adam. Then he let his gaze fall on an equally not amused Danny Williams and Steve McGarrett.

"You know where to find me, Kono," Adam said finally, the sinking of his shoulders signaling his retreat. With one last look, he turned around and made his way back to his vehicle.

Kono watched with a conflicted gaze for a moment before turning and swiftly walking towards the safe haven of Five-0 headquarters. Danny caught Steve's eye for a moment and with a swift nod, followed after her.

Steve crossed his arms, planted where he was in order to see the SUV pull out of the parking lot with his own eyes. Chin stepped next to him, the same thought going through his head.

"He was careful not to say anything about drugging Kono and handing her over to Delano," Steve muttered.

"I know," came the frustrated reply.

"Do you think he has real feelings for her?" Steve asked. Chin let out a breath.

"It's likely. What other reason would he be here today?" he asked. Steve's eyes tracked the SUV as it finally pulled out of the parking lot and out into traffic.

"To talk to her privately," he concluded. "He'd be crazy to think we'd allow that…" Chin nodded and then ran a hand over his face.

"But…" he said. "With things sitting the way they are right now, we can't shut that possibility out. We may need Adam at some point and it might be an easier battle if we keep Kono on the edge of that."

Steve let out a breath. "I very much hate that you just said that." Chin looked over at him with a quirk of his eyebrow, knowing full well that he was basically sanctioning something similar to what Steve had asked Kono to do all those weeks ago.

"Me too, brah. Me too."

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

_To be continued..._


	17. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 17

**A/N:  Sorry for the monstrous delay, folks.  Lost my way there for a bit, and getting back settled stateside and adjusted again took a bit longer than I’d anticipated.  Only to get a brief job in the meantime and then have preparations to go abroad again for grad school, and then said relocation.  So yeah… not much time for sideline writing.  LOL.  Anyway, at long last, on to what you clicked the link for.  I hope it’s decent and that you enjoy!**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Seventeen

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Chin and Steve walked into the case room to see Danny, Lori and Kono standing around the smart table looking at two pictures that had been enlarged onto the screens.

“Nice of you to join us, gentlemen,” Danny called to them.

“Who are we looking at and why are we looking at them?” Steve asked as he frowned at the pictures, crossing his arms over his chest.

“The one on the right,” Kono started, pulling up the full file on the bearded, dark-haired man.  “That is Bernard Capshaw.  He’s worked corrections for about 15 years.”  Steve turned to look at Kono.

“Delano’s inside man?” he asked.  She looked over at him and gave him a tight nod.

“He didn’t say it outright, but according to Mapes, Delano’s organization has been paying Capshaw’s wife’s medical bills.  She had Stage 4 cancer diagnosed three years ago and ended up making a miraculous, full recovery after intensive treatments.  Mapes says Capshaw has been grateful to Delano ever since and suggested pretty heavily that we go have a talk with him,” she informed the group.  Then she pulled up the other man’s file.

“This is Reinhard Amsel, aka Rykaard Mecke.  Hired gun.  He’s the guy Mapes claims took out our guy on the docks, Nevins, and Reyes and his girlfriend.”

“Does he know why?” Lori asked with a frown.  Kono let out a breath.

“Reyes and his girlfriend knew too much.  And our docks guy…” she started.

“… was in to too much,” Steve finished for her as he thought over the man’s connections.  Kono nodded.

“Exactly my thought,” she agreed.

“Alright, so we have a lead on the Delano end,” Steve said.

“We’ve got Capshaw and his wife,” Danny said, indicating himself and Lori, who nodded in agreement.

“Okay, so we need to get a handle on this Amsel character and who he is connected to,” Steve said.  Chin nodded.

“I’ll tackle that,” he said.  Steve nodded.

“Alright, I’ll help you with that,” he added.  Chin nodded again with a smile.  Steve turned to look at Kono.  She gave him an expression that said she knew what he was going to say.

“Don’t worry, I already know I’m touching base with Fryer.  I have a few contacts I need to go talk to anyway, to hopefully get my foot a bit further in to Delano’s org again.  I can’t let Mapes’ information go to waste,” she said.

“I was actually going to suggest you take the afternoon off,” he said.  Chin chuckled as Kono arched a brow at Steve.

“Not happening, but nice try,” she said.  Any retort the others had for her was silenced as a call came in, Fryer’s name lighting up the screen.  Speak of the devil…  For a moment everyone looked at each other stupidly, as if not knowing what to do with it or wanting to stay as far away from it as possible.  Then Kono rolled her eyes and hit connect.

“Fryer, what can we do for you?” she asked.

“We’ve got Delano,” the man said without preamble.  There was a moment of stunned silence.

“What?” Steve asked with a frown.

“Don’t sound so surprised, McGarrett.  Sometimes things actually do go our way,” Fryer told him.  “Anyway, we had an anonymous call.  Gunshot heard, someone investigated, found our boy.  He’s in surgery now at Kuakini, it was a miracle he survived this long.  The doctors are hopeful, but… it’s too early to tell.”

“Any leads on who did it?” Lori asked.

“Nah.  But, for all intents and purposes, we’re approaching this as a hit,” he told her.  Danny frowned.

“That seems like a big strategic ‘oops’,” he commented.  “The mark being alive and all.  Not very professional.”  Steve looked over at his partner.  He was inclined to agree.

“Something’s not sitting right,” he commented.

“I agree.  That’s why we’re sitting on the information, no press,” Fryer said.  “A hit is the avenue that makes the most sense and we certainly don’t want to advertise the detail that it was unsuccessful.  Delano on the run after his little kidnap party, chances are he called in a little backup in order to stay gone.  I’ll admit, we had no clue where he was.  We were looking at the opposite end of the island.  And if we had no clue, then for him to be found means…”

“His puppet master knew and took preventative action,” Danny gritted out.

“Exactly,” Fryer concurred.

Steve leaned onto the smart table.  “When do the doctors expect him to be conscious again?”

“They’re about to finish up the surgery.  He should be in recovery in the next 20 minutes,” he relayed.  Then the man let out a very audible breath.  “Kono…”  All eyes shot to her, making her squirm a bit under the scrutiny.  “This is an opportunity for us.”

She knew what he was saying and accepted it.  “When do you want me at the hospital?”

“Give it an hour.  I’ve got uniforms sitting in wait.  I’ll be here as much as I can, he’ll be adequately guarded.  But we’ll make it look like shift change in an hour or so, just give me a quick call when you get here,” he said.

“Alright.  Copy that,” she said before hanging up.  As she directed her attention back to the team, they all were watching her again.

“It’s weird hearing you taking orders from that man,” Danny commented, breaking the silence after a long moment.  Then he rolled his shoulders and straightened from the table.  “Alright, Weston.  We’ve got a man and his wife to see…”  Lori nodded before following the man towards the door.

“Kono,” Chin said, resting his palms on the table and his concerned gaze locking on her.  She smiled.

“Go, Chin.  We’ve all got work to do.  We’re no closer to any hard answers,” she told him.  When he didn’t move, she gave him a look.  “I’ll be fine.”

“I should be your backup,” he told her.  She took her phone out of her pocket and shook it at him.

“I have you on speed dial, cuz,” she reminded him with a smile.  Chin let out a breath.

“Alright.  But I’m holding you to that.  Use it this time,” he warned.  Kono held up a hand.

“Promise.”  Chin watched her for another second before nodding tightly and then headed to his office.

Kono pulled one of the conference table chairs to the smart table with a breath and stared up at the two men on the screen in thought.  After a moment, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees as she sunk into her mental preparations.  Or at least attempted to do so.  Steve’s presence just behind her was broadcasting itself loud and clear, even as the man himself was deathly silent.

He watched her for the briefest of moments before going and pulling up another chair next to her and parked himself there.  He, too, stared at the screen with two unfamiliar faces.  Then, he took a breath.

“Don’t say it,” Kono cut him off softly.  He glanced over at her to see her back slumped and her head hanging over her hands, as if pleading for the words to not come out of his mouth.

“I wasn’t going to say it,” he assured.  When she looked up at him, there was an amused tilt to her lips.  He smiled.  “Honest.”  He knew the last thing she wanted to hear was someone asking if she was alright.

“Really?” she doubted.  He held up his hand and gave her a look that bespoke his seriousness.

“Scout’s honor.”  Kono let out a small snort of a laugh.

“And since you were undoubtedly a scout, I’ll believe you,” she said, sitting up straight again.

“I will neither confirm nor deny,” he said with a shrug.  Kono rolled her eyes.

“No need to,” she informed him.  He just smiled before focusing on her again.

“I was just going to see what your plan was…” he started.  Kono’s eyes shot over to him, then her eyes fell to her hands on her lap.

“I’m not entirely sure.  I need to put in an appearance at the hospital.  If nothing else, it will get the gossip mill running.  Any news along that line is good news for our… sitation.  Shady connections, plausible deniability, and all that.  And after Danny and Lori visit Capshaw, I’m going to have to make contact with Mapes again.  And I’m going to start making contact with some of Delano’s partners and distributors that I had a general knowledge of,” she said.  “But it’s going to have to be carefully.  Delano has a long reach, and I pretty much put myself on the outside again with that Joyner bank op.  It’s going to be double the work it was last time.  At least the hospital visit will begin lend a bit of dubiousness to it all.  I hope.”

He knew that.  And he hated it.  To go down this particular road again was not something he was eager to do.  Especially knowing that the only real option to help her wasn’t a choice he wanted either.  Steve swallowed hard.

“You know…” he said after a moment.  “There could be an advantage with Noshimuri wanting to be in your good graces again.”  Kono looked up at him in complete surprise.

“What?”  There was an edge to her voice, and he understood it.  And he hated himself even more for it.  He felt as slimy as Fryer.

“Letting him work his way back to you can be to your advantage.  His ties… they could go a long way in gaining you credibility with the right people,” he told her.  Kono let that thought rattle around in her head for a moment.  The memory of Delano’s insinuation of her being a dirty cop by her associations still very fresh.

_It’s funny what kind of circles you run in…_

He’d obviously had his ear to the ground, or at least had his connections enough to know of her association with Adam.  Still, she hesitated.  Adam Noshimuri had lured her to his house and tried to kill her.  She wanted to be done with that.  And apparently, that was written all over her face for Steve to read.

 “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t _want_ you to do it,” he told her honestly, softly.  Kono watched the way his eyes focused on hers calmly but his fingers seemed to tense on his knees.  Strangely, and against pretty much everything she believed in herself, it did make her feel a bit better.

“But you’re going to let me if I decide to do it,” she said simply. 

“Yes.  Because it’s the job that needs to be done, and you’re the person that can do it,” he said.  Kono looked down to her hands, picking at a fingernail nervously.

“With Adam…” she started.  She took a deep breath when Steve didn’t interrupt her.  “I let too many variables cloud the objective.  I thought I could handle it.  Turned out, I couldn’t.  Not when it counted.”  When she looked up, Steve was watching her closely at her admission.

“And you doubt you can handle going back into Delano’s organization because of that?” he asked.  She tilted her head in a way that told him to read into it what he wanted.  So Steve let out a breath and sat forward.  “Even seasoned cops get caught up in the emotions, Kono.  Don’t hold that against yourself.  I said I trusted you and your instincts before.  I don’t say that lightly…”  Her eyes met his for a long moment before she nodded.

“This is important, Steve.  Getting into Delano’s organization again.  It could be a lynchpin to Wo Fat and the Yakuza,” she said.  Steve reached out and grasped her hand.

“And if you feel like you’re in too deep, you have me, Chin, Danny, and Lori ready to back you up,” he told her.  “We all have learned lessons the hard way.  The only thing we can do after that is to make sure we actually learned from it…”  Kono gave him a smile and squeezed his hand.

“Copy that, Commander.”  With that she stood up.  “Also… be sure to thank Catherine for the intel in saving me.”  When he looked surprised she gave him a small wink.  “I can tell when you leave out the messy emotional-type details.”

“I didn’t…” he started to protest but then shut himself up.  Out of everyone on the team, minus Lori, she was the better profiler.  Who was he to argue?  “I’ll be sure to pass on the message whenever I talk to her next.”

Kono was about to say something but was interrupted as Steve’s phone rang.  Steve let out a breath as he looked at the caller ID.

“I’ve been waiting for this phone call…” he grumbled slightly.  Kono frowned.

“Who?”  He held up the phone for her to see.

“The governor,” he told her.  “This is going to be a pleasant conversation.”

“I’ll let you know when I head to the hospital.  In the meantime, I’ll get started for you with Chin,” she told him.  He nodded.

“Please.  I’m not sure how long this is going to take,” he said.  Kono smiled but nodded to the phone.

“You better pick that up then, otherwise it will be longer than you’d want.”  He gave her a quick grin before standing and heading to his office.

“Good point,” he said, hitting the connect button and closed his office door behind him.  Kono watched him pace a bit, knowing that whatever the governor wanted wasn't likely to be anything good.  Those calls never were.  But that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Kuakini Medical Center_

_Honolulu_

He watched as police officers walked into the medical center, amused that they’d taken his target to a more unassuming hospital than the usual.  Probably a smart decision on their part.

He could only hope that he gave them enough to work with without jeopardizing himself even more.  It was imperative that no one knew what he did – or in this case, failed to do.  At least the Honolulu Police Department was sensitive to that particular detail.

There was so much more he could tell them, but he needed to stay alive in order to do it.  And that meant… discretion.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued…_

**A/N: I know it’s not much after such a long break, but I’m already at work on the next chapter.  I hope you liked it anyway.  Plus I have a few other things in the works.  Please stick with me, I promise things are about to get interesting.  *wink wink***


	18. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Eighteen

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Eighteen

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Kuakini Medical Center_

Kono closed her car door and stared up at the building. 

When she’d left headquarters, Steve was still on the phone with the governor – but his expression told her to _be careful_ as she gave him a general parting wave through those glass walls.  Chin had been a bit more vocal on the care of her person as he walked her out.  They’d stood by her car as he told her that he would do _anything_ she needed, even capitalize on his own dubious reputation, to help her.  And for that, she was grateful.  Even knowing that she would do anything and everything in her power to prevent a situation that would warrant it.

Now, as she stood outside the hospital, she hoped she wasn’t getting herself back into something that would prove to be over her head.  Five-0 had barely made it out relatively unscathed the last time around.

Steeling herself against all the doubt that crept up, Kono used everything in her to call up that old role she’d played for those harrowing weeks.  She hadn’t been comfortable playing the shady, duplicitous, criminal-minded, dirty cop the last time around.  It was no less true this time as she walked purposely towards the entrance.

It took her only a few minutes to pinpoint Delano’s location.  A badge tended to ease past all of those pesky limitations and rules hospitals implemented quite easily.  That, and Captain Fryer seemed to be waiting for her.

“Kono,” he greeted.  She nodded, carefully noting the on-duty officers slow disappearing act,  before looking into the room where the man who had dumped her into the ocean to die lay recuperating.

“How is he?” she asked, keeping it as business-like as possible.  Fryer watched her closely for a moment and then turned to look where her attention was directed.

“He was conscious briefly ten minutes ago before falling asleep.  The prognosis is good.  It was a high chest shot, shattered his collar bone.  Recuperation won’t be easy, but he’s very lucky to have made it.  The bullet missed everything vital,” he relayed to her.  Kono frowned.

“If the shot’s not there, most snipers won’t take it,” she murmured.  “A miss calls too much attention to it.”  Fryer nodded in agreement.

“Frank was off the beaten path in hiding, but not by much.  The shooter shouldn’t have taken a chance in him staying alive being that close to help.”

“Which leads to the question: why is he still alive?” she finished.

“Someone may be breaking ranks,” Fryer suggested.  Kono turned to look at him.

“You think someone wants out and is leaving Frank as one giant bread crumb?” she asked.  Fryer shrugged.

“Could be that, or could be much bigger.  Who knows?  Which is why I need you in Delano’s org.  Someone knows or has seen something,” he said.  Kono swallowed hard.

“I know.”

“Frank won’t be lucid until tomorrow, most likely.  You’ll do better trying to get in touch with one of his lieutenants.  My inside guy said that Mapes has been in contact with a man named Wade through his lawyer.  It’s a place to start,” Fryer informed while holding out a burner phone to her.  She looked at it for a long moment before taking it from him.

“This number is being given to Five-0,” she said, booking no argument in her tone.  The man nodded.

“I expected nothing less.  But same as before, don’t store numbers.”  Kono glared over at him as she stuffed the phone in her pocket.

“Same as before,” she mocked back.  “I am not _stupid_.”  Fryer chuckled.

“That I know.  But that doesn’t stop others from being stupid,” he warned.  Kono’s jaw tightened.

“The guys wouldn’t endanger me…”

“Awfully confident of their willpower, Officer Kalakaua,” he said.  “Your little gang hasn’t been known for being emotionally detached from each other.”  She rolled her eyes.

“Funny, they seem to have the same amount of confidence in you that you have in them,” she said back.  Fryer held up his hands in surrender.

“Fair enough.  I’m not trying to pick a fight,” he said.  Kono gave a small huff of disbelief.

“You thrive on picking fights,” she noted.  Fryer just smiled.

“No more than McGarrett,” he replied.  Then he shrugged towards the phone.  “Check in with me after every contact.”  Kono nodded.

“Not a problem.”

“And _before_ you talk to Five-0, preferably,” he said with a pointed look.

“This is a joint op, Fryer.  There’s no other way this is going down,” she told him.

“A joint op that stems off of our previous undercover,” he reminded her.

“That means nothing to me.  And you know it means nothing to McGarrett,” she said.  Fryer let out a breath.

“I know that Five-0’s immunity is the ace up your sleeve, Kono.  But I will go to the Governor if I need to,” he said.

“And do what?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

“Whatever I need to.  I know Lori Weston is at Five-0 for a reason.  Don’t make me use that,” he said.  Kono let out a breath.  She’d known she was making another deal with the devil when she agreed to all of this.

“Your grudge against Frank is _that_ important?  Really?” she asked.  Fryer shook his head.

“This is about more than Frank.  I understand that.  But this needs to be finished,” he told her.

“I get that,” she said back.  “Believe me, I have my own grudges to deal with as do every one of my team members.  And no one on Five-0 understands the term _personal_ more than McGarrett.  But this is _bigger_ than Frank.  You said it yourself.”  Silence fell between the two.  It stayed that way for more than just a few tense minutes before Fryer turned on his heel and stalked down the hallway leaving Kono to her own thoughts of _personal_ as she stared at the man in the room in front of her.  Her fingers twitched at her side as she struggled to keep herself still.  It was then that she noticed two new officers approaching from her left, each giving her their own look of suspicion.  _Well played, Fryer…_   She, too, turned on her heel and stalked her way towards the hospital exit.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Danny and Lori stood outside a modest looking house, each with their own look of surprise.  Danny’s, though, was tinged with a little more disgust than the woman at his side.

“Who the _hell_ does this to their house willingly?” he asked.  Lori let out a scoff.

“I guess we’re going to find out,” she told him as they walked up the short walkway to make their way to the front door.

“I’m probably going to be seeing spots for the rest of the day,” Danny told her as he punched the doorbell.

“It is a bit bright,” she agreed.

“A bit bright, she says,” Danny grumbled as he shielded his eyes.  “It looks like it was painted with a gigantic bottle of Pepto Bismol.”  Lori chuckled before reaching out and hitting the doorbell again.

“That is a pretty accurate assessment of the color,” she agreed.

“A _pink_ house.  Seriously, who does that?” Danny grumbled again.  It took a few more moments before a middle-aged woman answered the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Are you Tabitha Capshaw?” Lori asked. The woman narrowed her eyes.

“I am.  Who is asking?”  Both Danny and Lori showed their badges.

“We have a few questions for your husband,” Lori told her.  The woman frowned.

“Bernard?  What’s going on?” she asked, confusion evident.  Lori smiled reassuringly at her.

“We just have a few questions we need some clarification on regarding a case we’re working on,” she told her.  The frown didn’t lessen, but Mrs. Capshaw nodded in understanding.

“He’s out back.  If you wait here, I’ll go get him,” she said.  Danny smiled.

“Thank you.”  Lori looked around the house and smirked.

“Looks like the outside is starting to bleed into the inside,” she said softly as she noted the pink blankets on the couch, the pink flowers in the vases, and the artwork dominated by pink.  Danny gave a little hum of agreement as he took note as well.  But before he could say anything a voice cut in.

“My wife loves the color.  Especially now, after everything.  She says it makes her happy.  If she wants pink, she gets pink,” Capshaw said, looking over his shoulder at the woman now busying herself with clearing the table.  Danny just shrugged in response.  Who was he to judge a man in love?  He’d done stupid things in the name of love himself.  Marrying Rachel being one of those things. 

Capshaw turned back to them, a tense look over his face.  “Now, what can I help you with?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Chin had sat in his office for the past hour paging through all the known aliases for Reinhard Amsel.  The man was a professional.  And who knew what the real name was among Rykaard Mecke, Holland Rivers, Petro Gregorovich, and countless others.  He let out a sigh.  The only way they were going to get his connections – which could be many – was to get him alive.  And even then, it would be a needle in a haystack to get to the ringleader of the mess they were currently in.

A knock on his door caught his attention.  Steve was standing there with a small frown.

“Any progress?” he asked.  Chin let out a breath before he shook his head.

“A ghost.  And even if we get a name to the ghost, it’ll be hard to pinpoint where he fits in,” he reported.  Steve nodded as he entered the office.

“Any word from Kono?”  Chin watched carefully as Steve sat down in the chair opposite him.  After a second he shook his head.

“None.  You?” he asked.  Steve shook his head as well.

“No.”

“She’ll check in.”  Steve nodded tightly in agreement, and Chin could tell he was just as apprehensive about both the Delano operation and Noshimuri.  Chin cleared his throat in hopes to change the subject.  “I heard you were on the line with the Governor.  Anything good come out of that?”

Steve chuckled.

“Does anything ever good come from a call from the Governor?” he asked rhetorically.  Chin’s eyebrow rose as he too chuckled.

“Good point.  Anything of interest, then?”

“Not at the moment, outside the fact that he alerted me to a few blips on the military radar that came to his attention.  Particularly when word got out Hiro Noshimuri is dead,” Steve told him.  Chin frowned.

“And that means?” he asked.  Steve shook his head and ran his hand over his face.

“I have no idea.  Tried calling Joe to get his input on the chatter, but of course…”

“AWOL?” Chin grinned.  Steve smirked.

“Something like that.  My guess, though, is that perhaps the players are messing around some military assets that have ties to Yakuza,” he said.

“Arms?” Chin asked.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Steve agreed.

“Or the second.”  Chin sat back in his chair to think.  “Delano could be the arms middleman.  He’s run weapons before.”

“Wo Fat could have been that middleman for the Yakuza, too,” Steve pointed out.

“Until Hiro and Wo Fat fell out, that is,” Chin reminded him.

“Well, the tattoos put Delano and the Yakuza in bed together on the business end.  Delano has some pull over the Yakuza if he could get Adam to play the game and get Kono to that boat.  The real question is which end of the org chart does Wo Fat sit on.  I don’t doubt he’s involved,” Steve conjectured.  Anything Chin was going to say was cut short as his eyes caught on the dark-haired woman entering headquarters.

“Kono’s back,” he said softly, calling Steve’s attention to their teammate.  The two men watch her as she went into her office, paying them no attention.  “Doesn’t look like it went well…”  Steve let out a breath.

“I’m not so sure I could handle seeing Delano so soon either, after everything,” he said.

“You mean without putting another bullet into him?” Chin asked.  Steve gave a quick head tilt of agreement.

“You going to talk to her?” he asked of Chin.  The older man shook his head. He knew Kono enough to let it sit for a little while. Badgering her never got him anywhere, and he'd been on the wrong end of a verbal wall before. He certainly didn't want to repeat that particular performance just yet.

“I’ll let her sort it out a bit more before I do that.  Have Lori and Danny checked in yet?” he asked back.  Steve nodded.

“Danny texted before I came in here.  They’re on their way back.  They didn’t get much outside of Capshaw’s confirmed involvement in Delano’s escape,” he relayed.  Chin nodded.

“Just means we gotta keep swinging away.”

“I hope one of us will get a home run soon,” Steve grumbled.

“We’ll have Kono making contact with Delano’s org and touching base with Noshimuri.  Those are some pretty big at bats that could be productive,” Chin said.  Steve nodded.

“I know.  But they’re risky plays.”

“Don’t I know it.  Now, enough with the baseball metaphors.  We’ve got work to do.”  The two men grinned at each other as Steve left the man to it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Five-0 was just here,” Bernard Capshaw said into a burner phone.

“And what did you tell them?”

“I just confirmed my involvement with Delano’s release.  That my main interactions were with Delano himself or one of his people,” Capshaw said nervously.  There was silence on the other end for a moment, making the twitchy man even more so.

“I’ve got eyes on you.  If you let anything else slip, all that work you did to make your wife healthy again will have been for nothing,” the voice told him.  Capshaw swallowed.

“I understand that.  I didn’t say anything that would lead them to you.”

“We’ll see about that…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Halawa Correctional Facility_

Ray Mapes sat quietly in his cell.  The one nice thing about being in solitary meant that he didn’t have to listen to all the bullshit going on in the main block.  The less he was involved in all of that the better, for more than just the obvious reason.

He’d gotten word that Delano was alive, but not necessarily well.  Which made him a bit jumpy.  Ray knew full well that solitary didn’t mean one hundred percent safety.  There was always someone, somewhere willing to take an envelope.

And as he stared down at the piece of paper in his hands, he wondered just what this particular piece of information from an unknown source was meant to convey.

_Word has it that you’re a dead man… Careful what you eat._

A warning, or a threat?  He just didn’t know.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She had to say, she’d been impressed by both Chin and Steve’s restraint.  The former was fairly well behaved in terms of letting someone have their space – but not quite as lenient when it came to her.  The latter, well, he wasn’t really known for his restraint at all.  So, considering the facts, that her first hour back at headquarters had been uninterrupted after her previous assignment came as a surprise.  She wondered who lost the coin toss for later, though.

Kono was working at the smart table when the call rang through, Vince Fryer’s name on the screen.  She pushed the connect button and she could hear a flurry of activity in the background.

“Fryer,” she greeted wryly.  “Long time no talk to…”

“Kono, is the whole Scooby Gang there?” he asked without much else of a greeting.  The man’s voice was extra gruff, meaning it was likely important.

“Hang on,” she replied, starting to make her way to Steve’s office.  She pulled out her cell phone, but as her finger lingered over the connect button, Danny and Lori walked in.  She mouthed the word _Fryer_ to them, indicating the table, as she knocked on Steve’s window and caught Chin’s attention through his.

“What do you have, Fryer?  You’re leeching into our legwork time,” Danny informed him with a roll of his eyes as he stopped next to the table.  Lori stopped next to him as the rest of Five-0 joined them.

“Yeah, well, legwork might get a bit more substantial,” Fryer told him sharply.  “I’m at another breaking and entering call…”  Chin frowned from where he stood behind them.

“Any bodies this time?” he asked.

“Negative.  Family’s on vacation,” Fryer informed them.  “But I can say that there seems to have been a major development.  Something we’ve missed each and every time.”

“What’s that?” Lori asked.  Fryer let out a breath.

“I’m staring at about a million or two dollars-worth of militarized weapons right now,” he said.  Chin and Steve caught eyes, their expressions grim.

“Excuse me?” Kono asked, eyes wide.

“You heard me,” Fryer said.  “It was all hidden.  In compartments within the house.  We caught this breaking and entering by surprise – a silent perimeter alarm in the back yard.  So they had to make the escape before we got there.  The perps forgot to close up a compartment properly and we literally stumbled over it.  We’ve found at least five compartments under the floors already.  We think there might be a few more…”

“Jeez,” Danny said, rubbing a hand over his face.  “We’ll need to grab copies of the floor plans of those other breaking and entering calls.”

“Not just floor plans.  We’ll need to re-search all of the grounds.  I’m getting my guys working on the warrants for that,” Fryer told them.  Kono’s hands flew over the smart table as she started looking up the floor plans of the previous houses as well as a full listing of the previous owners.

“These houses were probably cherry-picked, knowing that they had these storage areas,” Kono mused.  Chin nodded.

“That’s highly likely.  And what better way to confirm the presence of these particular areas than an in-person ‘consultation’,” he said, something clicking in his head.  His eyes met Lori’s and she nodded.

“The full-service travel agency,” she concluded.  She directed her next question to the person on the other end of the phone.  “You said the family is on vacation?”

“Affirmative.  My officers are still trying to get a hold of the family.  We’ll confirm whether or not they have any connection to your travel agent buddies.”

“Keep us updated, we’ll do the same,” Steve told the other man.

“Sure,” Fryer confirmed before hanging up.  Danny shook his head.

“How’d we miss that?” he asked.  Steve ran a hand over his face.

“Because we weren’t looking for it.  We didn’t even suspect we should be looking for it,” he said.  “But the governor had an inkling.”

Lori’s eyes widened slightly.  “I didn’t hear anything about it.”  Steve shook his head.

“Doubt he had time to brief you.  He and I talked while you were out with Danny at Capshaw’s.  There’d been some buzz along the military lines.  There was nothing specific, but chatter about assets usually leads to one thing in particular,” he said.

“High-end arms smuggling?” Kono asked, eyebrow raised.  Steve’s silence confirmed it.

“You know what that means.  Yakuza is the likely suspect,” Chin noted.  She nodded as she noted the grim looks of all her team members.

“I know.”  Her job just became a double undercover, in a way.  And she knew she didn’t have any time to waste.  Her eyes met her cousin’s and held for a long moment.  “I’ll call Adam in a few minutes…”  Then she let out a breath, and without looking at anyone else, she turned to go to her office.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued…_

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

**A/N: Things are about to get interesting as things unravel…  :)** **Hope this chapter was enjoyable, or at least somewhat informative.  I hope to have an update out soon as I really, really miss writing for this!  This was quickly written and edited, so if you see mistakes, let me know!**

 

 


	19. Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Nineteen

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, I had to restructure this whole chapter as I just didn’t like it.  This is a lot better, yet still not exactly how I wanted it.  Please be kind.  LOL.  I hope you like it anyway…**

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Nineteen

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Late the next morning  
Kamekona’s Shrimp Truck_

 “I was hoping you would call.”

Kono was silent for a moment as she sat across from him in the warm, Hawaiian sun.  Why she’d agreed to see him this morning was still a question she was asking herself.  She could have held off a bit more…  “I wasn’t going to.”  Adam tilted his head to the side slightly as he assessed her admission.

“Is it too much for a man to hope that you simply couldn’t let him go?” he asked.  Kono looked up at him.

“I can’t deny there is _something_ between us,” she told him plainly.  He looked pleased to hear that.  “But that’s not why I’m here.  I’m here because I felt I owed it to _myself_ to hear what you had to say without a particularly hostile audience.”  Adam nodded.

“I understand that.  And am very grateful.”

“Not that we’re completely alone, mind you,” she said, gesturing to Kamekona’s truck behind them.  The man himself kept throwing furtive glances their way, concern written all over his face evidenced by the number of wrinkles in his forehead.   When Adam caught the man’s eye, the worrying mother hen look immediately transformed into one of warning.  Other than that, Kamekona let them have their space.

“Whatever makes you comfortable.  Whatever it takes for you to understand that I am sincere when I say that I am so sorry…” he said, reaching out to take one of her hands.  Kono couldn’t help the tiny flinch, and she pulled them out of his reach.  The white bandages around her wrists were fresh, and stark, against the morning light.

“We’re not to that point,” she told him.  He tried to keep the hurt from his eyes as he nodded, but he didn’t quite succeed as he retracted his hand again.

“I’m encouraged that you could think that there may be a point where it’s possible,” he said with a small smile.  Kono just shook her head.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush here, Adam.  I just want to know why.  Why did you do it?” she asked, doing her best to mask the pain and betrayal in her voice.  “I trusted you.”

Adam had the grace to look completely ashamed as he looked away, out towards the water.  “I honestly did not know you were going to be handed over to Delano.”  Kono frowned at those words, but indicated for him to continue.  “By the time you came to the house, I was already up to my neck in trouble.  My father… was already a dead man, but I believed I could save him.  I had to try.  If I’d known…”

“If you’d known that it wouldn’t have made a difference you wouldn’t have done it?” Kono asked, bitter disbelief seeping into her assumption.  She had to scoff a bit at it, of course.  Adam looked back to her.

“You don’t understand, I didn’t have much choice in the matter,” he said tightly.  Kono met his gaze with a hard one of her own.

“No, because you’re Adam Noshimuri.  Son of the head of the powerful Hawaiian branch of the Yakuza.  All free will on your part is non-existent,” she said in mock understanding.  He flinched.

“There are more players involved than just the Yakuza,” he said.  Kono chuckled.

“I am _fully_ aware of that,” she told him, then let out a heavy breath in order to reign in emotion.  “I think I’ve had enough of talking today.  If there’s any hope of continuing this at some point, you need to go.”

“Kono, we haven’t really said anything…”

“Oh, I think we’ve said enough for now,” she refuted as she stood.  “I got what I came for.  I’ll be in touch…”

“Kono…”  If he thought she was going to give him any sort of concession, he was sorely mistaken.

“Sistah say you need to go, you need to go,” Kamekona called from the truck, making it very clear that he was alert to Kono’s uneasiness.  Adam’s gaze flicked from Kamekona back to Kono.  His jaw was tense, but he gave her a nod.

“I can be patient, Kono.”  With that, he stood up too.  “What we had is worth being patient for.”

“If what we had before is what you are looking for, then it’s not worth the wait.  What we had before died in that ocean,” she informed him, her eyes locked on his.  He shook his head.

“I don’t believe that.”  Kono didn’t say anything.  If that’s what he wanted to continue believing, she wasn’t going to dissuade him.  But she knew better.  What they’d had before was so very naïve.  She’d talked herself into something that was built on lies and denial.  Well, none of that was true now.

When Adam turned to walk away, Kono closed her eyes.  It had been harder than she’d anticipated to sit across from him and not be affected by what had happened.  Even for the job.  Even knowing what it could accomplish.

“You okay, sistah?” Kamekona asked from behind her. When she turned around, he held out her favorite flavored shave ice.

“I’m okay, Kamekona.  Thank you.  Just working out some demons,” she said with a small chuckle as she took the proffered item.

“Shave ice always helps with that,” the large man said with a friendly smile.  Kono could only give him a bemused smile in return.  To the outsiders, their ohana was quite the odd and rag-tag bunch, she was sure.  But it made so much sense.

“You are a prince among men, Kamekona,” she told him.  He winked to her.

“It’s why the wahines love me.”  When her phone rang moments later, Kono was laughing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_One hour later_  
_Beretania Street_  
 _Honolulu_

“Well, can I at least say that I don’t feel as bad about missing these as I did before?” Danny commented as he stared at a newly revealed compartment along with all the other Five-0 members.  They were at the scene of Fryer’s break in from the prior day.

“These were likely old opium smuggling caches, among other things that came through these districts to help line prominent pockets back in the day.  Whoever found these paid good money to have these not be easily found again,” Chin noted as he looked over the space, kneeling down to run his hands over the edges.

“The family claims they never knew they were here,” Kono said.

“I’m inclined to believe them,” Chin said.  Danny frowned.

“Why?”  Chin slid the compartment door on the floor closed again, making it a seamless match to the hardwood floor above it.

“Because if they knew, they’d be expendable.  The only family that was killed was the family that was at home unexpectedly and stumbled on the people using these compartments.  If this family had known, we’d be looking at more dead bodies,” Chin explained.  Kono nodded.

“They’d want these kept secret as long as possible,” she agreed.

“Yeah, but they likely wouldn’t remain secret forever,” Danny pointed out.

“True, but it’s likely this wasn’t a long term option.  They had to get creative.  Delano’s organization was under the microscope, the Yakuza had shifty things happening with Hiro’s disappearance, and Wo Fat… well he’s always shifty,” Chin said.

“And the governor’s been putting pressure on ATF and ICE to get a handle on the sale of illegal weapons,” Lori informed them.  The four looked over to her.

“Well, thanks for passing that info along. Good to know it’s an even exchange,” Danny quipped before rolling his eyes.  Lori let out a huff.

“It didn’t concern me or Five-0,” she defended.  Danny indicated the floor in front of them.

“Oh no, clearly not.  You have a lot to learn, weed hopper.”

“To be fair, we only really stumbled on this ourselves just now,” Chin said reasonably, giving Danny a smirk when the blond man glared at him.

“OK, so ATF and ICE has been putting pressure on, meaning arms have been closely watched.  It would explain the chatter the Governor alerted me to,” Steve said.

“Does he know something more than that, you think?” Chin asked with a frown.  Steve thought about that for a second.

“It’s doubtful, but my track record says I’ve been wrong about these things before,” he said.

“So this is the back door for arms dealing then?  Where’s the sense in that?” Danny asked.

“The military is Hawaii’s second largest industry, meaning the black market is working just as diligently in its shadow,” Steve said, running a hand over his tired face.  “I agree with Chin.  It’s likely this is their short term holding plan before they can distribute.  With the bureaus on a sharp lookout, who would look in the wealthiest Honolulu districts for illegal arms?”

“Those who know the connection, obviously,” Vince Fryer’s voice said from behind the group.  The five turned to watch the IA man approach, flashing his badge at the on duty escort officer.  “Delano’s awake, fully lucid, and cantankerously on the mend.  I have a detective questioning him as we speak.  ICE and ATF also have a man waiting in line for their turn.”

“Good to know the man isn’t lonely,” Danny quipped.

“He won’t be for a while,” Fryer assured.  Then he looked at Steve.  “And I don’t want anyone from Five-0 near him for the time being.  Is that understood?”

“For personal or professional reasons?” Steve asked, curious.  Danny chuckled before Fryer could answer.

“Cuz there’s heaps of both involved there,” the blond said, before he looked to Fryer for the official answer.  The IA detective just grimaced a smile.

“Let’s just cover all bases and say both,” he replied.  Danny nodded.

“It’s good to be thorough,” he noted.  Then he looked to Steve.  “Hear that, partner?  No unsanctioned visits of any variety.”

“I’m not deaf, Danno.”

“Just making sure.”  Steve rolled his eyes.

Fryer turned to look at Kono with a smirk.  “I heard you’re making nice again with Yakuza Junior.  Seems to me you’re getting a taste for this sort of thing.”  Kono eyed the man with interest.

“Where’d you hear that?” she inquired, genuinely curious at his ridiculously up to date reports.  Fryer just shrugged.

“I have my sources…”  Chin frowned and stepped closer to the other man.

“Wait a minute.  We’re all on the same side here, I thought.  If Kono doesn’t have all the cards in her hand…” he started, angry at the lack of information.

“Chin, he’s just warning me that I have a tail and my whereabouts are starting to be noted,” Kono tried to assure.  But her cousin wasn’t appeased.

“You’ve got her jumping into the deep end again and all you can tell us is that you have your sources?” he asked.  Fryer looked at Kono again.

“All I’m saying is that Kono does have a tail.  She’s correct in that.  But she already knew that… didn’t you?” he asked her directly.  Kono nodded.

“They were watching me as I talked with Adam,” she confirmed.  Fryer nodded.

“And we were watching them,” Fryer noted.  Steve looked to the other man.

“You’ve actually got surveillance on Kono?” he asked, sounded a bit surprised.  It certainly hadn’t been Fryer’s way in the previous op.  Fryer just smiled.

“I learned my lesson.”  Danny scoffed, reading between the lines.

“That’s a load of bull.  You’ve got surveillance on the guys following Kono.  Ergo, you’ve got accidental surveillance on Kono,” he supplied.  Fryer just shrugged, which was confirmation enough.

“Thought you guard dogs here at Five-0 already had that part of it all covered anyway,” the man said, looking in turn at each of the men.  “But then again, you’ve had some things to distract you.”

“Anyway,” Steve cut in, already fed up with the IA man.  “So, no bedside vigils and flowers for Delano.  Anything else?”

“We’ve got the ballistics lab tracking the weapons we pulled out of the house yesterday.  We’ll let you know if they come up with anything,” Fryer informed them.  Steve nodded.

“In the meantime, Danny and I will need to go talk with the travel agency owners again.  Chin, Kono, Lori… take a few, take a long lunch, whatever.  We’ll regroup later,” he told them.  The three nodded, but Fryer cleared his throat.

“Now that we’re done with this happy little confab…  If you don’t mind, I’m actually going to borrow Officer Weston for a few.  I could use her profiling sense on an interview I have waiting,” Fryer told them.  When Steve looked to Lori, the woman just shrugged indifferently.

“Alright,” he agreed warily.

“No more recruiting pitches, please,” Danny added.  Fryer just smirked.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he responded before indicating for Lori to follow him.  As the two left, the rest of Five-0 followed behind, dodging the crime scene unit specialists on their way.

“Catch a lunchtime beer, cuz, while these two go get the gold star for effort today?” Chin asked good-naturedly as he walked to his car.  Kono grinned at the griping coming from Danny’s direction.

“Robot Steve doesn’t believe in food… or _beer_ …  A much needed beer, might I add,” he said.  Steve shook his head.

“The Lawrences could be on a plane to the mainland or to Timbuktu by now, Daniel, if they’ve found out we have a solid connection to them.”

“You know where Timbuktu is, huh?”

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”  Chin and Kono rolled their eyes at each other at the typical back and forth.

“Maybe later, Chin.  I’ve actually got a call to make.  But I’ll see you guys later,” Kono said, catching Steve’s eye quickly as he pulled the Camaro door open.  No words needed.

Danny stopped Kono before she could rush away and his eyes caught on the unfamiliar phone in her hand.

“Hey,” the blond said quietly.  “I know that call isn’t personal.  And since you turned down a rare lunchtime beer, I know it’s important.  Be careful, alright?”  He was saying what his partner wouldn’t say, but also making sure he got his own thoughts in as well.  It wasn’t as much of a dictatorship as some liked to believe.

“Danny…”

“No,” he stopped her.  “This isn’t the typical ‘go get ‘em tiger’, ‘break a leg’, whatever rally cheer fits before an op, okay?  This is a very firm, very serious ‘be careful’.  We are in muddy waters right now and the last thing we need is something happening to you when you’re out running Fryer’s errands.  We’re in the crosshairs, as you well know, and with us all being stretched it’ll be easy to catch us off guard again.”  Kono laid a hand on the blond’s shoulder.

“I hear you, and I will be careful.  The same goes for you guys, okay?”  Danny scoffed.

“I’m always careful,” he told her.  “It’s the other half of this particular partnership you need to remind…”  Kono chuckled, but Danny’s hand gripped her wrist gently, above the bandage.  “If you can’t put Chin in your back pocket, call if you have a bad feeling.  I don’t care if it ends up being indigestion.  Just call…”

Kono smiled.

“Promise.”  He nodded before jogging over the awaiting Camaro and his surprisingly patient partner.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You’re late.  I don’t usually take calls from people who don’t find it important to respond right away.”

“I know.  It couldn’t be helped.”

“That’s what you get, I guess, from playing both sides.  You realize I am putting a lot of faith into what I’ve heard about you to even be taking this call…”

“And I’m grateful.  I can only imagine that’s why you’ve had a tail on me?”

“At least you’re not as stupid as some.  You can at least be perceptive.”

“Someone has to be, right?  With Frank out of commission and Paul dead?”

The silence meant there was a sideline discussion happening without her.  Kono didn’t take it personally.  She’d long since dialed down that particular fear of being caught out.  The silence also meant she wasn’t having a one on one conversation.  That, in itself, was an intriguing tidbit.

“Meet me at 10 o’clock tonight.  I will text you the address.  We’ll discuss matters then…”

The distinct click of a call disconnecting told Kono that she at least had her foot in the door.  Now if she could only let out that little sigh of relief she should feel…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Governor’s Mansion_

The three people in conference stood around the Governor’s desk with their arms crossed, heavily into an important discussion.

“You don’t think he’s in any way colluding?” Governor Denning asked.  Lori let out a mental sigh as she shook her head.

“Absolutely not.”

“And that’s not just your… _biased_ … opinion, is it?” he asked more pointedly.  This time Lori sighed out loud.

“No.”

“It’s no secret that he’s gotten intelligence from both Lieutenant Rollins and Commander White.  McGarrett has used his so-called immunity liberally in the past, under the former administration,” the man said.  Fryer chuckled.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” he said, causing the governor to arch a look in his direction.

“McGarrett has several ties to the military outside of Rollins and White, sir, as you well know.  But his trust in both Rollins and White is implicit,” Lori said.  “He was generally surprised by your own intelligence on the matter, though, sir.”

“So he has no notion of any dealings going on in his backyard, and in your opinion, has no reason to think that either Rollins or White has any involvement in it,” Denning asked.  Lori nodded.

“Exactly.”

“We’re going to need to speak to both White and Rollins,” the Governor told them.  Fryer and Lori both nodded.

“You’d have a better bet going through their commanding officers – or former, in White’s case.  They’ll respond to the official channels quicker.  White has a way of, well, _ignoring_ anything that he doesn’t deem important and has proven to be unpredictable.  ‘Official’ would be important to him,” Lori said.  Fryer looked between the two quickly before speaking up.

“What exactly are you looking for, sir?” he asked of the other man.  He could smell something going on, beyond just the normal Five-0 politics.

“I’m not _looking_ for anything.  Consider it an insurance policy.  But there is a reason that Lori is with them right now, and there is a reason why I asked you here,” the man told them.  Fryer sat down in the chair, his interest peaked.  It wasn’t often he got a direct conversation with the state’s highest official.

“Well, here I am.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_To be continued…_

**A/N: Alright, so that’s the very much restructured version of this chapter.  I hope it was decent.  Anyway, I’ve got some things starting to unwind themselves, so the next few chapters should be busy, if not a bit time consuming to make sure I have everything right.  The plot endgame is written, but now I just need to get us all there!!  Let me know what you’re thinking!!**


End file.
